COMM 4183: Networking America: Differences in Scholarly and Non-Scholarly Resources
Guide content supports the teaching and research goals of multiple departments on campus. Content represents a non-exhaustive selection of essential resources and tools for engaging a wide range of backgrounds and viewpoints.
Differences Between Scholarly and Non-Scholarly Resources
Differences Between Non-Scholarly and Scholarly Resources
| Non-Scholarly (Popular) | Scholarly (Academic) | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Journalist, layperson, or sometimes unknown | Expert (scholar, professor, etc.) in field being discussed |
| Notes | Few or no references/footnotes available | Includes notes and/or bibliography |
| Style | Written for the average reader | Written for experts, uses subject-specific jargon, shows research |
| Editing | Reviewed by people at the publisher | Reviewed by editorial board of outside scholars (peer review) |
| Audience | General public, people in stores/online | Scholars and researchers in the field |
| Advertising | Many ads, often in color | Few or none; if there are any, they are for other scholarly materials |
| Look | Eye-catching/interesting design, many pictures, color | Plain, utilitarian, black and white, tables and charts |
| Contents | Current events, general interest | Specialized research topics only |
| Sample Titles | The New Yorker, The Washington Post, National Geographic | Harvard Educational Review, Journal of Environmental Law |
| Sample Article |
"The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing" - The Atlantic, "Iowa City to launch a year of temporary sculpture installations" - The Daily Iowan |
"Highly Efficient Reprogramming to Pluripotency and Directed Differentiation of Human Cells with Synthetic Modified mRNA" - Cell Stem Cell, "How Long is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension" - Science |
Activity - Choosing Between Scholarly and Non-Scholarly Sources
Activity - Choosing Between Non-Scholarly and Scholarly Articles
- Below are a few articles that you can click to read. Based on what you've learned about the differences between non-scholarly ad scholarly articles, which are them are non-scholarly and which are scholarly? Why do you think so?
- "How the Cat Gets Its Stripes: It's Genetics, Not a Folk Tale"
- "Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks? Reality and the Quantum Theory"
- "A Universal Equation for the Shape of an Egg"
- "Chicken Chicken Chicken"