Many faculty members require students to use "journal" or "scholarly" articles in their course assignments. How does a student determine if an article is scholarly? What is a journal? Isn't that the same as a magazine?
Journals and magazines are both types of periodicals. A periodical is something that is published on a regular or "periodic" basis. Periodicals are generally divided into two major groups: popular and scholarly. If you can recognize the differences between these types of sources, you can focus your research to retrieve only the type of articles you need.
If you use the Databases provided by the SU Library, you may be able to limit your search to one particular type of article. (Each database offers its own unique search options.) Within the databases you may see the terms Scholarly, Academic, Peer Reviewed, or Refereed to designate the scholarly sources.
