Hello! I’m Kat Wyly and today we will be considering the differences between scholarly
and popular sources. Thinking about these two source types will be beneficial during
any research process. Sometimes, an assignment will require only using scholarly sources,
while for other assignments, there will be no explicit guidelines. This module will guide
you when checking both scholarly and popular sources for accuracy and relevance to your
research goals. There are pros and cons to both types of sources - so let’s take a
look! Before continuing, make sure you have a pencil and paper or a word document open
to jot down some answers for a few activities in this module.
Scholarly sources are sources that are grounded in academic environments that have been authored
by researchers or experts in the field. They are often found in academic journals or books
and are usually quite long. Their most common purpose is to share original research findings
that contribute to scholarly conversation in a particular academic field. This means
that the intended audience is other researchers and scholars. The language used is often filled
with specialized vocabulary and assumes that readers might already have background knowledge
on the topic. Finally, scholarly sources always have extensive citations in a bibliography
and might also include footnotes.
These are some examples of scholarly sources. Here, we have the journals Advances in Archaeological
Practice and Macromolecules, as well as the books The Evolutionary History of Nematodes
and It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. Journals house a variety
of academic writings that fall into the particular subject discipline. These are often released
quarterly or monthly, but rarely more frequently than that. For scholarly sources, it takes
quite a while to go through the publishing process and these articles are often peer-reviewed,
or read through and edited, by other experts in the field. Books might be published by
university presses, such as the University of Oregon and Yale for the examples on this
page, or other affiliated research institutions.
We also have popular sources! Popular sources are written by a wider range of authors including
journalists, writers, bloggers, or members of the public. Popular sources are often found
in magazines or newspapers and aim to provide news or summarized information for the general
public. These sources are written with accessible language and usually provide background information
or context on a topic. There might even be images to supplement the text! In terms of
citations, sources are not always cited, but it is common for other studies or articles
to be referenced or hyperlinked.
You might be familiar with some of these common popular sources. Here, we have magazines such
as Time and National Geographic as well as newspapers like the New York Times and the
Stranger. These sources have a much quicker publication cycle and might come out daily,
weekly, or monthly for readers. Each city or geographic region might have their own
selection of popular sources, too, such as the Stranger here in Seattle. Others, like
the New York Times, might reach a larger scale of readers and provide a perspective on global
issues.
Here we have two sources to examine. One is an article titled “Developing a Regional
Open Space Strategy (ROSS) for Central Puget Sound, Washington State, USA” by Nancy D.
Rottle. It was published in Environmental Science & Policy. Our other source is “As
Development Booms, Seattle Gives up on Green Space” by Adiel Kaplan and InvestigateWest.
This was published in Seattle Weekly. Without even reading the full text, there are a few
key aspects that stand out for each article. These differences are helpful when deciding
if a source is scholarly or popular and in turn, how the source could be useful for your
research. Please take a few minutes to jot down a couple defining features of each article
and to identify which is scholarly and which is popular. If you wish to explore each article
further, there are tiny URLs that link to the full text in a comment on the side of
the page. For the Environmental Science & Policy source, you will need to log in with your
UW Net ID to get access through the library’s website. Pause this presentation while you
complete this activity and press play when you are ready to hear some potential answers.
You might have discovered that the Environmental Science & Policy article on the left is the
scholarly source and the Seattle Weekly article on the right is a popular source. Let’s
investigate some of the evidence behind these classifications. Starting at the top of the
scholarly article, I’ve circled some aspects that stood out to me. First, the author has
an affiliation after her name - this particular FASLA stands for Fellow of the American Society
of Landscape Architects. This distinction gives her publication further credit in the
field. Next, there is a section fully dedicated to the article history and highlights that
it has been revised before being accepted to this journal. An abstract, or a summary
of what the article is about, is also included before the paper continues to use headings
such as Introduction. There is also a DOI, or a Digital Object Identifier, at the bottom
of the page which helps identify academic literature.
In contrast, the Seattle Weekly article is a popular source that welcomes readers with
a large image at the start of the article. Next, there is a timestamp that indicates
this source was released online at 1:30 am. There are also icons for social media including
Facebook and Twitter. I also took note of how the paragraphs were very short to encourage
easy reading. Finally, there are links to other articles or ads on the side of the page.
You might have also come up with other differences that I didn’t address here! These are just
some examples and it is helpful to recognize that different articles will have various
combinations of these defining features. Just because you see a picture, it doesn’t mean
that the article is popular!
If you’re thinking that scholarly sources seem better, you’re not alone! This is a
common misconception, although there are plenty of scenarios that call for well-researched
and assessed academic studies. Popular sources do have some benefits and it is important
not to discount them when researching or reading to learn. Take a couple of minutes to brainstorm
a few benefits of popular sources. Pause this presentation while you do this, and press
play when you are finished in order to move on to the next slide.
There are quite a few reasons why there are so many popular sources out there! Think of
the magazines and newspapers that you frequently read. Popular sources provide background information
that can help inform next steps in our research process. Popular sources also provide diverse
perspectives that incorporate lived experiences instead of just academic qualifications. These
sources are also more frequently published and might provide current information due
to the less rigorous publishing process. Finally, and this is not always true, but popular sources
often cost less and may not require expensive database subscriptions. This means that it
is easier for the public to access many popular sources. Currently, resources such as Google
Scholar and other Open Education Resources strive to provide free access to scholarly
sources as well.
You might be considering that there are potential pitfalls with popular sources, too! It is
important to critically examine popular sources because there are some common areas where
they may fall short of your source expectations. Popular sources may lack evaluation by experts
in the field. Many sources also include facts or statistics that seem credible, but they
do not cite where the data comes from. Finally, these sources may make general claims without
specific evidence.
Remember the Seattle Weekly article earlier? Their quote: “Parks advocates say that if
the city goes through with the deal, it will be sorry. Yes, homelessness needs attention,
they say, but Murray is creating a false choice between helping the homeless and greenspace.”
really highlights this issue. Who are the parks advocates that this article is mentioning?
Without a particular name of a group or citation to refer to, it is hard to substantiate this
claim. While other parts of this article do reference specific studies and would be credible
to include in an assignment, this is a weak aspect of this source. If you wanted to include
information on the perspective of parks advocates in an assignment, a next step would be searching
for other sources that more directly document their stance with evidence.
When examining sources, remember to keep in mind the type of source that your assignment
or project calls for! Assignments for classes may require using only scholarly sources.
This is because these sources have frequently gone through the peer review process of being
edited and read by other scholars in the field. Remember that both scholarly and popular sources
are impacted by bias. This means that the author incorporates their own particular perspectives
into their argument. This doesn’t mean you have to avoid these sources, but make sure
to directly address in your assignment any bias the author holds as part of your analysis.
Remember to use this critical lens when examining any source - both popular and scholarly sources
could provide useful information while supplementing each other during the research process!