Informational Reports for Non-Expert Readers: Journals vs Popular Press Publications

In your life as a student, you will likely read many journal articles from the major field you are studying. In your everyday life, you will read many articles in many magazines and newspapers. There are major differences between the two types of publications and the work they publish. Although you will not be producing an article per se, your informational report will in fact range close to the types of articles that you might find in specialized publications that have mass appeal, as this page will discuss.

Scholarly Journals

Regardless of your major, you likely work with professors who have published widely in scholarly journals. Such journals are “written by experts,” and they exist in virtually every field as showcases for articles on critical subjects and issues.1

Just to give you an idea of how widespread the influence is of scholarly journals, here is a listing of some of the journals in just three areas:

Studying philosophy, real estate, human development, sociology, or any other field that requires advanced training or an advanced degree? Your field also has a number of periodicals in which you might end up publishing should you choose to go that route.

Popular Press Periodicals

On the other hand, popular press periodicals are the sort that you can very often (but not always) pick up in the magazine section at Barnes & Noble, Target, and Walmart. There is, however, a range of publication types within this category, with some having mass appeal and others appealing to a more specialized audience.

According to the article "Who's Reading Magazines, and Why They Keep Coming Back," Links to an external site. magazines in general are very popular, with a "print and digital audience of 222.2 million" that is "diverse and inclusive."2 In terms of overall appeal to readers, scholarly journals have a much narrower range, while mainstream magazines have a very wide appeal, as the above statistics show. Somewhere in the middle -- with aspects of a more specialized focus yet maintaining a broader appeal to the public -- you can find special interest publications, as shown in Figure 1.

 

Figure 1: The Range of Publications, from Mass Appeal to Scholarly

Diagram showing the range of publications, from mass appeal to scholarly

Figure 1: The Range of Publications, from Mass Appeal to Scholarly

In the more specialized publications, you will find articles that tackle more complex subjects in a way that is designed to appeal to the more general reader with an interest in particular subjects. They usually include images and language that can be understood by non-scholar readers. Even their titles reveal the differences in how their respective articles tackle complex subjects:

On the next page, you'll learn a little bit about how those who write more specialized articles approach the task of explaining a complex subject to a general audience. Before you leave this one, however, it might help to understand in a nuts-and-bolts way what differentiates scholarly journals from popular press periodicals.

How Scholarly Journals Differ from Popular Press Periodicals

On its page "What's the Difference Between Scholarly Journals and Popular Magazines," Links to an external site. Georgetown University Library provides the following comparison between the two types of publications [italicized text added to original text]:

Table 2: How Scholarly Journals Differ from Popular Press Periodicals
Scholarly Journals Popular Press Periodicals
Articles written by experts: often professors Articles sometimes but not always written by non-specialists
Articles often go through a peer review process: independent experts evaluate the article before it's published Articles are reviewed by an editor, but not by a panel of experts; often, fact checkers are also involved in the process
Articles have footnotes and bibliographies Articles may or may not mention sources in the text
Minimal advertising, graphics, or illustrations unless relevant to the article (for example, art journals) Extensive advertising, lavish photos, colorful cover to market the magazine; use of visual aids within the articles themselves, including photos, graphs, charts, diagrams, and more

 

1“What’s the Difference Between Scholarly Journals and Popular Magazines?” Georgetown University Library. Georgetown University. Available: https://library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/scholarly-vs-popular Links to an external site..

2 Petterson, Matt. "Who's Reading Magazines, and Why They Keep Coming Back." MRI | Simmons. 14 December 2022. Available: https://www.mrisimmons.com/2022/12/14/whos-reading-magazines-and-why-they-keep-coming-back/ Links to an external site..