There are many different types of scholarly articles and not all will be reporting the results of a research study. Articles that include specific sections like literature review, methods, results, and discussion are almost always articles that are reporting the results of a research study.
Popular article vs. Scholarly Article examples:
| Popular article, from a magazine / trade publication: | Scholarly article, from a peer-reviewed journal: |
| Berry-Ivy, K. (2021). Creating an Effective Social Media Strategy. Communication: Journalism Education Today, 55(2), 20–24. | Brooks, G., Drenten, J., & Piskorski, M. J. (2021). Influencer Celebrification: How Social Media Influencers Acquire Celebrity Capital. Journal of Advertising, 50(5), 528–547. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2021.1977737 |
| Srigley, R. (2020). Phonely Connect. MIT Technology Review, 123(1), 66–73. | Juvonen, J., Schacter, H. L., & Lessard, L. M. (2021). Connecting electronically with friends to cope with isolation during COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Social & Personal Relationships, 38(6), 1782–1799. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407521998459 |
Just because it's popular doesn't mean an article isn't useful--both popular and scholarly articles can be helpful for research. However, if you are doing academic research, you probably need to use scholarly articles more often than popular ones, so it's important to be able to tell the difference. Here's a quick summary of the differences between scholarly and popular articles and what each type of article is used for:
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