Knowing about the information cycle can help you make more informed decisions about where you might look for information and what kind of information may be available on a topic.
It's important to know that library databases contain academic and non-academic sources, which may be surprising to you as college student who is often asked to use databases. Databases house content that is not found for free online, and while a lot of scholarly sources are behind paywalls, news and magazine content is also not always free. Because it takes time to create academic content, when a new topic emerges, such as the outbreak of a disease, news and magazine content may be the best or only places to find information initially, so it is important for college libraries to provide a mixture of source types.
Explore "...the differences between popular and scholarly sources in the context of the information cycle" in the video below.
Library databases contain many different types of articles, and it's important that you are able to tell the differences because there will be many times in your college career that you will be asked to use specific types of articles.
Learn how to distinguish between popular, trade, and scholarly articles in the following video.
"Identifying Types of Articles" (3:27) by Andersen Library, Reference & Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is licensed under CC BY 3.0
| Criteria | Scholarly Journal | Trade Magazine | Popular Magazine / Newspaper |
| Sample Article |
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|
| Audience | Academics and professionals | People in the business | General public |
| Authors | Experts or specialists. Unpaid. | Staff writers, industry specialists, or vendor representatives. Paid. | Journalists, staff writers, or freelance writers. Paid. |
| Editorial Review | Journal editorial board and peer reviewers. Unpaid. | Professional Editors. Paid. | Professional Editors. Paid. |
| References / Works Cited | Almost always | Sometimes | Rarely |
Modeled after NCSU Libraries "Scholarly & Popular Materials" tutorial.
