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Locating Peer-reviewed/Scholarly Journals in our databases

Many of our databases allow you to limit your search to peer-reviewed/scholar journals. 

Ebscohost (eg. Academic Search Elite, ERIC, SocIndex FullText, etc.)

Gale (eg. Health Resource Center Academic)

Proquest (eg. ABI/Inform, CBCA Business,etc.)

ScienceDirect

Popular, Scholarly, Trade or Peer-Reviewed?

You wouldn't wear a tuxedo to a barbecue, would you? And you probably wouldn't expect an opera singer to burst into an AC/DC standard at a command performance.

It's all a matter of tradition, suitability, and meeting the audience's expectations.

So too, when you are preparing a paper or presentation, it is important to choose sources that match your purpose and your readership. This is especially true when selecting journal or magazine articles.

Let's suppose that you have been asked to write a short paper, to be presented to your learning manager, on the topic of media violence and its effect on children. When conducting your background research, you will be required to choose articles from popular, trade, and scholarly journals. What's the difference?

Popular magazine articles are usually short (less than 10 pages) and are often written for a general audience. Typically, they are published on glossy paper, with plenty of illustrations and advertisements. They do not often include bibliographies and footnotes. Examples would be Chatelaine, Maclean's, or Today's Parent. The authors of articles in popular magazines are most often staff writers or freelancers.

Trade magazines, by contrast, are intended for use by an industry or profession, and their content is quite specialized. They deal with news stories, trends, and issues specific to an industry or subject area, e.g., graphic design or food retailing. For example, titles such as Chain Store Age and Machine Design would be considered trade magazines. As with popular publications, the authors of articles in trades magazines are most often staff writers or freelancers.

Scholarly journals feature longer articles, with frequent bibliographic references and little or no advertising. They are subject-specialized, and often report research findings to an audience of practitioners and academics. Titles such as the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, the New England Journal of Medicine, or School Psychology Review would fall into this category. Articles in scholarly journals are usually written by experts in the field (as opposed to staff writers) and they are frequently peer reviewed, i.e., subject matter specialists have reviewed and commented on the articles prior to publication. Peer review is sometimes also known as the refereeing of journal articles.

While all of our databases contain a mixture of articles, some lend themselves to a popular, trade, or scholarly emphasis more readily than others. For instance, if you need popular content for your presentation, you might look in a database such as Canadian Business and Current Affairs. For trade articles, sources such as Vocational and Career Collection, Canadian Business and Current Affairs, or ABI/IFORM would be good choices. Academic Search Elite or the Professional Development Collection have scholarly strengths. Most of our databases also offer searchers the option of limiting results to a particular type of content (e.g., peer-reviewed) either before or after launching a query.

Returning to the topic raised above --- a short paper on the effects of media violence on children --- scholarly sources are probably best. The seriousness of the subject area, the research environment (Holland College, a post-secondary educational institution), the requirements of the task (production of written paper, with sources documented), and the range of possible source materials (i.e., who publishes on this topic? It is more likely to be scholarly than popular or trade), all suggest a scholarly approach. If you are in doubt as to the best choice for your topic area and assignment, please consult staff in your nearest resource centre.