Scholarly and popular sources are two types of sources you may find and use in your research. They have different characteristics and purposes that will be reviewed in this section.
A scholarly or peer-reviewed source has been written by an expert in the subject (ex., a professor or other researcher), and has been reviewed and approved by a group of other experts (their peers). It is written for an academic audience and will usually present original research in a specific field. The NC State Libraries provide an interactive diagram of a scholarly article that you can view to see the different components. An example of a scholarly source is a research study published in an academic journal.
A popular source is written for a wider, more general audience, and may provide a more broad overview of a topic. The author is not necessarily an expert in the specific subject and is usually a general journalist or freelance writer. These articles do not go through peer review and may be edited by a single editor or editorial board. An example of a popular source is an article in a magazine.
The chart below goes into more detail about how to distinguish between these two types of sources.
| Popular Sources | Scholarly Sources | |
|---|---|---|
| Author/Audience | Written by journalists or freelance writers for a general audience. | Written by scholars or experts in the field for other scholars (including students) and experts. |
| Writing Style | Language is more general and simple, may explain key concepts and terms, does not assume the reader already has knowledge about the subject. | Language is more technical and complex, assumes the audience is familiar with key concepts and terms in the field. |
| Review/Editing Process | Reviewed by general editors. | Reviewed by experts or peer-reviewed. |
| Subject Matter | Often discuss current events and/or entertaining topics. One issue might cover many subject areas. | Report original research in a specific field of study. |
| Illustrations | Often have colorful photographs. | Often have charts and graphs showing data from a study. |
| Advertising | Have advertising, including for products and services that are unrelated to the article topic or field. | Has little or no advertising. Ads are typically for related journals, books, and conferences in the scholarly field. |
| Citations | Do not include citations or include few citations. Citations may be links to external sources and not in a formal citation style. |
Have both in-text citations and a works cited list, reference list, or bibliography at the end of the article. |
| Examples | Time Magazine, The New York Times, Business Weekly, Psychology Today | New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Geoscience, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Annual Review of Psychology |
In the sciences, primary research articles (also called empirical or original research) are articles where the authors of the article are the ones who conducted the study or research they are writing about. These are scholarly articles published in an academic journal that focus on one specific study conducted by the authors. They follow a common format that shows the study materials, methods, results, and discussion. Like scholarly articles in other fields, these are aimed at experts and academics who have an existing knowledge of the topic and will use technical language to convey information.
Review or secondary articles are scholarly articles that report on what other researchers have done. The authors of the article did not conduct the research they are writing about but may synthesize or compare multiple studies to explore their findings. Review articles can provide an overview of what types of studies and research have been done in a certain field or subject area. All of the studies are cited, so you can look in the bibliography to find the primary research articles the authors refer to.
An abstract is like a summary of an academic article. This is one of the first parts of the article you should look at when you're working with a scholarly article. The abstract will provide an overview of what the authors are researching, how they did their research, and what results they found. For a primary article, the abstract will include information about an experiment the authors conducted. It may even summarize their research methods and results. You should be able to tell from the abstract whether the authors conducted an experiment or are reporting on experiments conducted by other researchers. If the abstract discusses finding existing studies/articles, you are likely looking at a review article, not a primary article.
A primary article will likely have sections labeled Methods, Results and/or Data, and Discussion. Look for these section headings and look at what is included within the section. Under Methods, a primary research article will describe the steps the researchers took to conduct a study. They may describe the study population, tools they used, lab equipment, and data collection methods. Results/Data will often include charts and graphs that detail the data collected. This section may be highly technical, with information about calculations and data analysis. The Discussion is where the authors apply their results to their initial research question(s) and hypotheses. They will discuss whether the experiment met its goals and what they learned from it. The discussion is a good section to read over a few times, as it will help you better understand the methods and data.
In a primary research article, the authors of the article are the same people who conducted the study in the lab (or whatever experimental setting the study called for). You may see authors use words like "we," "our research group," or other first-person terms to indicate they were the ones running the experiment and are now writing about it. If they have done previous work they are building on, you may see citations that say "Authors" instead of listing names. Because the authors are writing about their own experiment and their own findings, that makes the source primary.
In a review article, authors are reporting on other people's work and would refer to those studies by the authors' names.
**Note: Sometimes authors will still write in third person even though they ran the experiment. Some journals prefer authors do not use words like "I" and "we." While this can be a helpful way to determine if you're reading a primary article, in some cases it may not apply and you should rely on the other criteria to make a decision.
When conducting research, you may be asked to find peer reviewed sources. Peer review is a process used by many academic journals to make sure they publish high quality research that has been vetted by experts. In peer review, researchers submit their manuscript to an academic journal for publishing. The journal editor then sends that article to a group of reviewers who are experts in the field. Those reviewers read the draft and look critically at things like the research methods, the structure of the manuscript, the quality of the research, and whether it is a good fit for the journal. Reviewers send feedback to the original researchers who can then edit the draft based on that feedback. At the end of this process, the reviewers recommend to the journal editor if the article should be published or rejected and the journal editor makes a decision based on the reviewers' feedback.
Peer review is not necessarily going to confirm that an article or study is factual or correct. Reviewers aren't reviewing for accuracy, but are checking that the methodology is sound and the conclusions are logical based on the information the author(s) provided. Journals use this process as a sort of quality control for what they publish - by having multiple experts look at a manuscript, they can filter out research that doesn't meet a journal's standards.