WHAT DO YOU MEAN--PERIODICAL, JOURNAL, MAGAZINE, SERIAL?

 Periodicals come in a variety of styles and are published for a variety of audiences. They offer news, opinion, commentary, scholarly analysis, literary criticism, and reports of research.  They range from brief newsletters published by trade organizations to in-depth journals published by scientific societies and university presses.  All periodicals are published at more or less regular intervals, from daily newspapers to semi-annual journals.

You must make active choices about the types of periodicals needed for a given research project.  Magazines may be appropriate for some purposes, journals of opinion for others, but usually the most important sources for university-level research are academic journals. Jan Sauer Nov. 2006

TYPES & EXAMPLES

AUDIENCE & USE

METHOD OF ACCESS

Newspapers:
   New York Times 
  Times(London)
  Times Picayune

Current information; journalists & freelance
News stories, features
Editorials, Sound-off, Letters to the Editor
Texts of speeches, etc.
Local or Geographic focus

Lexis-Nexis
Ebsco's Newspaper Source
Proquest's Ethnic NewsWatch

Mobile Register
Some newspapers are available on the public web

Magazines:
Southern Living
  Working Woman
  Modern Maturity
  Personal Computing

Minimal reading level; staff and freelance writers
Focused toward specific consumer groups
Feature stories, Recipes, tips, how to...
Lots of advertising

Local Public Library
Ebsco's MasterFile Premier
InfoTrac's OneFile
News Magazines:
  Time
  Newsweek
  Maclean's (Canada)

Nontechnical language
Current events, public opinion polls
Photographs, graphs, book & movie reviews
Lots of advertising

InfoTrac's Expanded Academic ASAP
InfoTrac's Business Index
Ebsco's Academic Search Premier
Popular Magazines of Opinion:
   New Republic
  National Review
  Christian Century
Christianity Today
America

Generally Educated Audience
Particular viewpoint or agenda; political, religious, ideological, Commentary
 Editorials
Book, movie reviews, interviews
News articles with a slant

InfoTrac's Expanded Academic ASAP
InfoTrac's OneFile
InfoTrac's Reference Center Gold
 Ebsco's Academic Search Premier
Ebsco's Masterfile Premier

Professional Trade Journals:
  Adweek
  Progressive Grocer
  Modern Plastics
  Hardware Age
   Aviation Week

Written for practitioners
Practical articles; vocational info
Product information and ads
Current trends and practices
Meetings, jobs, personalities

Ebsco's Business Source Premier
Ebsco's Vocational Search
Ebsco's MasterFILE Premier
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe>News>
    General News(magazines & journals)
Academic Journals:
  Psychobiology
  Journal of Popular Culture
  Nursing Management
  Studies in Short Fiction
  College English
  Journal of Marriage and the        Family

"Peer-reviewed" or "refereed"
 Technical language of the field
Often non-profit, no advertising
Charts, graphs, tech. drawings
Reports of original research or thought
Long bibliographies and/or footnotes
literature reviews, methods, results, discussions

InfoTrac's Expanded Academic ASAP (click on "to refereed publications")
Ebsco's Academic Search Premier (click on "peer reviewed")
Other specific disciplinary indexes like PsycInfo, Science Direct, ACM Digital Library. (see complete alphabetical list under "Fulltext Journals & Indexes")

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University Homepage
Jan Sauer.
Last updated: 11/07/06. js
URL of this page: http://www.usouthal.edu/univlib/sauer/what.html