Reliability:
Different Types of Publications
Things to Consider:
- In what type of source is the information published?
 |
Information can be published in a variety of sources, such as scholarly/professional journals, trade publications, popular magazines, or information sources which try to sensationalize topics. |
|
As a review from Chapter 3, some specific types of periodicals are described below.
| Type |
Characteristics |
Examples |
| Journals |
- Scholarly or professional focus
- Written by experts in the field for a specialized audience
- Include footnotes and bibliographies
- Few illustrations, long articles, very few or no advertisements
|
 |
| Magazines |
- Popular in nature
- Written by reporters for a general audience
- Usually no footnotes or bibliography
- usually include advertisements
|
 |
| Newspapers |
- published daily or weekly
- up to the minute news items
- may have local, regional, or national focus
- advertisements
|
 |
- How thoroughly has the information been edited or reviewed?
|
Some publications require that the information be reviewed by several experts in the field. These are called refereed orpeer-reviewed publications. Notice the instructions for submitting an article to this journal include a review process.
|
|
|
On the other hand, some publications (such as personal Web sites) require no review process at all.
|
|
|
