| Popular Magazines | Trade Journals | Scholarly Journals |
Examples |
The Economist, Psychology Today, Time, National Geographic |
Advertising Age, The CPA Journal, Billboard, American Libraries |
Journal of the History of Ideas, College English, Antiquity, Science |
Audience |
For the general public; use language understood by the average reader |
For those in a particular trade or industry |
For students, scholars, researchers; uses specialized vocabulary of the discipline |
Content |
May report research as news items,feature stories, editorials and opinion pieces |
Reports on problems or issues in a particular industry |
Reports original research, theory; may include an abstract |
Appearance |
Highly visual, a lot of advertising, color, photos, short articles with no bibliographies or references |
Visual, contains advertising, color, photos, |
Little or no advertising, has tables & charts, high concentration of print, lengthy articles, bibliographies & references |
Authors |
Author may not be named, frequently a staff writer, not a subject expert |
Staff writers, freelance authors |
Authors are specialists, articles are signed, & credentials such as degrees, university affiliation are often given. |