What is a Scholarly Journal?

Scholarly journals

• Also called academic, peer-reviewed, or refereed journals
• Contain articles written by scholars or experts who have completed research in a given field
• Intended to publish original research to share with other researchers and scholars, who constantly build upon new knowledge

Scholarly articles 

• Usually have an abstract or descriptive summary
• Are intended to inform (rather than to push a viewpoint or sell something, for example)
• Are often lengthy
• Often use technical language
• Contain citations (footnotes, bibliographies)
• Often have authors affiliated with a university or research institution
• May include charts, graphs, or other representations of data/research
• Do not tend to include advertisements or many images
• Do not include magazine and newspaper articles

Tip:  You can use search limiters in databases to limit your results to only peer-reviewed or scholarly articles!

Full-text and peer review limiters, (c) Sarah Sowa, Mitchell Community College, all rights reserved.

Articles that appear in scholarly journals are subject to a peer-review process, which means that other specialists or scholarly peers evaluate the quality of the author's research before the article is published.

Adapted from: "Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A Checklist of Criteria: Introduction and Definitions" by Research & Learning, Services Olin Library, Cornell University Library is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (opens in a new window).