What does "scholarly source" mean? What is the difference with a popular source?
Answer
Popular and scholarly sources could have many differences, but it will be easy to recognize them once you start examining some key elements.
Usually, scholarly sources:
- are written by and for scholars, researchers, professors or other experts in that specific field.
- tend to use technical and scholarly language, harder to understand if the reader is not familiar with academic literature and its jargon.
- are usually long articles about a research and its conclusions.
- usually include full and correct citations for sources.
- are reviewed by different specialists and experts in the field of study before being accepted, thus can often be labelled as "peer reviewed" even if not necessarily always
Popular sources (e.g. magazines, newspapers or blogs), instead:
- are often written by journalists or professional writers for the average reader; sometimes in blog or websites the author is even omitted.
- rarely give full citations for sources.
- are written for a general and wide public.
- are usually very short and give generic information.