ENG 101: English Composition I - Updike: Articles

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Popular Literature vs. Scholarly Peer-Reviewed Literature: What's the Difference?

Purpose

• Academic: To communicate research and scholarly ideas
• Popular: To inform and entertain the general reader

Audience

• Academic: Scholars and students
• Popular: The general public

Scope

• Academic: Very narrow and specific subjects
• Popular: Broad variety of public interest topics, cross disciplinary

Authors

• Academic: Scholars, researchers, experts, usually listed with their institutional affiliation
• Popular: Employees of the publication, freelancers (including journalists and scholars)

Characteristics

• Academic:

1. Little or no background information given
2. Technical language and discipline-specific jargon
3. Peer reviewed
4. Bibliography/References/Citations included
5. Procedures and materials often described in detail
6. Articles are longer, often over 5 pages

• Popular:

1. Little technical language or jargon
2. Few or no cited references
3. No bibliography
4. General summaries of background information
5. Contain numerous advertisements
6. Articles are usually brief; between 1-7 pages

Provides full text for more than 3,800 scholarly publications covering academic areas of study including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences and ethnic studies.

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center is a one-stop source for information on today's hottest social issues. OVRC features viewpoint articles, topic overviews, full-text magazine, academic journal, and newspaper articles, primary source documents, statistics, images and podcasts, and links to websites.

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1234 Columbus Avenue
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Boston, MA 02120