Scholarly articles are sometimes "peer-reviewed" or "refereed" because they are evaluated by other scholars or experts in the field before being accepted for publication. A scholarly article is commonly an experimental or research study, or an in-depth theoretical or literature review. It is usually many more pages than a magazine article.
The clearest and most reliable indicator of a scholarly article is the presence of references or citations. Look for a list of works cited, a reference list, and/or numbered footnotes or endnotes. Citations are not merely a check against plagiarism. They set the article in the context of a scholarly discussion and provide useful suggestions for further research.
Many of our databases allow you to limit your search to just scholarly articles. This is a useful feature, but it is not 100% accurate in terms of what it includes and what it excludes. You should still check to see if the article has references or citations.
The table below compares some of the differences between magazines (e.g. Psychology Today) and journals (e.g Journal of Abnormal Psychology).
| Popular magazines | Scholarly journals | |
|---|---|---|
| Reference list, citations | no | yes |
| Appearance | flashy cover, photographs, advertisements | mostly text, often graphs and charts of data, few ads |
| Titles | short and catchy | long and precise |
| Article length | short | long |
| Audience | general public | students, professionals, researchers |
| Authors | staff writers, journalists | practitioners, theorists, educators |
| Peer-review | no | yes |
| Publisher | commercial company | educational institution or professional organization |
Wash U has extensive backfiles of ERIC Documents on Microform: (1966-1982 at West Campus MFs; 1983- 2004 in West Campus Microforms)
According to the ERIC Website: The documents that are currently available on microfiche, but not online, can be found in the PDF document below. Note that ERIC is in the process of actively restoring documents that were taken offline due to readability issues, although not all of these documents are restorable. This list will be updated periodically to reflect any new documents made available online through the PDF restoration process.
