ENGL 1302 - Instructor Lucille Dominguez: Research Tips and Information

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If your instructor ever asks you to find a magazine or a journal, you might be wondering,  What is the difference?

Magazine

• Written for a general audience at about the 7th grade level.
• Articles are usually written by people with Journalism or English degrees.  The author's don't always have a degree in the field they are writing about.
• Usually have a lot of pictures and advertisements.  The goal of a magazine is to sell magazines, so they put something eye-catching on the cover to get your attention.

Journal

• Contains information and research on a particular field of study. 
• Articles in journals are written by people who have a degree in that particular or similar field or they have a lot of experience in that area of study.
• The articles are usually written for the professional and may use technical language.
• The goals of a journal is to further knowledge in a particular field.
• Articles usually contain abstracts, graphs, and bibliographies.
• There are journals for all different types of subjects (Business, Political Science, Nursing, Libraries, Science, History, etc..)
• Information is more reliable than a magazine because the articles are written by professionals in that field.