| Popular Magazine | Scholarly Journal* | |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Glossy; lots of color, photos, and illustrations | Plain-looking; Text heavy; Visuals usually include charts, graphs, & tables |
| Authors | Journalists | Experts specializing in a particular subject field |
| Audiences | General, non-professional audiences | Professionals and scholars in the field to which the journal pertains |
| Article Titles | Usually short; attention-grabbing; aren't necessarily explicit about an article's content | Can be lengthy; usually very explicit about what an article is about |
| Content | News, general interest articles; wide variety of topics | Original research, review articles; narrow subject scope |
| Length of Articles | Vary from short to lengthy (a few paragraphs to ~8-10 pages) | Usually pretty lengthy (~10-20 pages) |
| Article structure | Usually no formal structure; lengthier articles may have labeled subsections | Very formally structured; Consist of abstracts, summary of research problem or question, methodology, results, conclusion, and references |
| Source citations | Sources may be mentioned but not necessarily cited | Heavily cited; citations can be included in footnotes, references, or bibliographies |
| Advertisements | Yes | None or some |
*Some scholarly journals are known as "peer-reviewed" journals. "Peer-reviewed" journals require that an author's work be reviewed by a group of his/her professional peers before it can be included in a publication.