Library Home :: Services :: Instruction :: Course Specific Research Guides :: Communications 3023

Dr. Levitt's guide

More Characteristics of Scholarly Articles

1. "Journal" is frequently used in the title (though not all titles with "journal" in them are scholarly).
2. The articles are reviewed and edited. Look for an Editorial Board on the inside of a printed journal.
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY, scholarly articles tend to follow these basic formats:

Scientific/Experimental/Quantitative Studies

1. an abstract usually appears at the beginning, followed by
2. an introduction/literature review, followed by
3. research questions and/or hypotheses, followed by
4. detailed description of methods, followed by
5. results (often lots of statistics, tables, etc.), followed by
6. conclusions/discussion, followed by
7. references/works cited

Humanistic/Historical/Qualitative Studies (may have some elements above)

1. will still have an introduction
2. may pose research questions, but will not have hypotheses
3. may or may not have a defined methods section
4. may or may not have a clear results section
5. will usually, but not always, have a concluding section
6. references/works cited

ALL scholarly articles will have a final section with references/works cited. That is one of the key differences between scholarly articles and popular magazines.