Magazines are periodicals. Newspapers are periodicals. Why do librarians call them periodicals? It is our business to collect and provide access to all kinds of publications. We use the word "periodical" to distinguish publications that are issued periodically--daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly--from publications that are issued singly, like books. Several TYPES of periodicals are listed below.
Newspapers and magazines
Librarians and publishers call newspapers and magazines "popular" periodicals.
Journals
Journals are also often called academic or scholarly to indicate both their origins (often in academic institutions) and audiences (often scholars). They are also often peer-reviewed or refereed.
People new to these terms often confuse journal with article. An article is a single authored item within any kind of periodical. A journal is a periodically-published collection of articles by different authors.
Journals and magazines are important sources for up-to-date information in all disciplines, but it is often difficult to distinguish between the various levels of scholarship available in them. In this guide the criteria for periodical literature is divided into four categories:
A (brief) essay or research report on a subject. Articles can appear in MAGAZINEs, JOURNALs, newspapers, full text online databases, or other sources such as encyclopedias.
The information which identifies a book or article. The citation for a book usually includes the author, title, place of publication, publisher and date. The citation for an article includes the author, title of the article, title of the periodical, volume, page(s) and date.
To see more helpful definitions of terms generally used for periodicals, please see the Definitions tab at the top, under Fast Facts.
This Guide is generally adapted from the Cornell Guide: http://guides.library.cornell.edu/scholarlyjournals
And this one from University Park Library: https://upresearch.lonestar.edu/scholarlysource
Periodicals can offer some advantages over books depending upon your information need.
You should use the periodicals because they may:
1. provide information that cannot be found in books
2. provide the most up-to-date material available on a subject
3. provide contemporary opinions and theories on past events
Because periodicals are such an important forum for information and debate, they make great primary documents for research. You can learn a wide variety of facts about a particular time, place, and community from newspapers, magazines, and journals. Periodicals report events, but even more importantly, they give you a window into how people understood those events at the time.
Whether the periodical in question is a newspaper aimed to keep the inhabitants of a city informed about current events or an academic journal designed to keep professionals in a discipline up-to-date on research in the field, periodicals speak to particular audiences at a specific moment in time. Though their news does not stay new for long, their lasting value for research is in the thorough, idiosyncratic way they give a picture of a particular moment.
Periodicals might be the first documents that come to mind when you think of secondary sources. Academic journals, which publish articles by scholars in a given discipline, are often the best way to learn about the latest research, especially in the sciences and social sciences.
Most academic journals publish new issues two, three, or four times a year. University libraries usually subscribe to many academic journals, and you can find their most recent issues in your library or in the library databases.
And not the web?
For one thing, most Library periodical databases aggregate SCHOLARLY materials. They have been vetted and approved for academic use. In addition, the search features of most databases make it fairly easy to filter and sort your results in meaningful ways. When was the last time you sorted your Google results?? Most importantly, the materials in a periodical database have been indexed and abstracted - this means ADDITIONAL information has been added to each entry to both help you FIND the appropriate materials for your use, but also make sure that you have all the information about that article that is possible.
Lastly, the Kinlaw Library (and all academic libraries) pay for quality information on your behalf. Your tuition dollars have been spent in order for you to have access to the widest available quality information possible. This includes the access to MUCH FULL TEXT of the actual articles. Out in the wider world, you would have to pay for each individual article. Sometimes up to $60.00 each. Take advantage of the access to "free" materials while you are here.
Periodical Database: A collection listing articles (abstracts or full-text) from magazines, journals or newspapers that is organized by subject and allows access, retrieval and use of the documents.
There are reference books which attempt to describe and evaluate periodical titles. If you need further information about an individual title we suggest you consult:
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