Scholarly journal articles are generally considered to be more authoritative than articles published in popular magazines or trade publications. This is because authors of scholarly journal articles are considered to be experts in their fields, the research is reviewed by peers who are knowledgeable about the subject matter, and any research referenced in the article is cited using footnotes and bibliographies.
This doesn't mean that articles published in popular and trade publications shouldn't be used and, depending on the type of information needed or the class assignment, they may be very appropriate to use. Many undergraduate research papers will likely use a mix of popular, trade, and scholarly articles. Popular and trade articles are useful for learning background information, people's opinions, or recent news on a particular area of study, for example.
Review the following guides to learn more about the differences between scholarly, trade, and popular journal literature.
Reading scientific papers is not like reading a novel or a news article. To save time reviewing the dozens of articles (or more!) that you may encounter while working on a single research paper, it's best to start with the abstract. If the abstract seems promising, then you may want to read the results and review any tables and graphs. Finally, if these sections of the paper are relevant to your research, then it may be worthwhile to read the entire article.
For more suggestions about how to read a scientific research article, see the following papers:
To keep track of all the articles that you want to read, you may want to use a reference manager, such as EndNote, Mendeley, or Zotero. Check out the Citing Your Sources tab in this guide for more information.
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