Types of Periodicals, Delaware Technical and Community College Libraries

Delaware Technical & Community College Libraries

Types of Periodicals

Additional Student Resources / Subject Guides

	Scholarly & Research Journals	Professional, Trade & Industry Journals	Newspapers	Popular Magazines
Examples	Harvard Business Review Journal of Dental Hygiene Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine	HR Magazine Mathematics Teacher OT Practice Psychotherapy Networker	News Journal New York Times USA Today Wall Street Journal	Glamour Newsweek Sports Illustrated Time
Content Values & Uses	Reports of original research; Often includes experiment results; In depth analysis of issues related to the discipline; Academic level book reviews; Refereed or peer-reviewed	Current trends, news & products in a field; Company, organization, & biographical infomation; Statistics, forecasts; Employment & career information; Book and product reviews	Current information; Hard news; Local and regional information; Classified ads; Editorials; Speeches; Book reviews; Primary source for information on events	Current events; General interest; General news; Hot topics; Primary source for analysis of popular culture; Short articles; Generally not much depth; Interviews
Language	Academic; Can be very technical; Uses the language of the discipline	Written for practitioners; Can use jargon extensively	Written for a general educated audience	Non-technical language
Authors	Researchers, academics, professors, scholars, etc.	Practitioners in the field or journalists with subject expertise	Journalists	Generally, journalists and freelance writers
Sources	Footnotes and bibliographies; Often very extensive documentation	Occasional brief bibliographies; Sources sometimes cited in text	Rarely cite any sources in full	Rarely cite any sources
Publisher	Universities, scholarly presses or academic/research organizations	Commercial publishers or professional and trade associations	Commercial publishers	Commercial publishers
Graphics	Graphs, charts, diagrams, tables and/or formulas, depending on the discipline; No glossy ads here at all	Photographs, charts, tables, illustrations of all sorts; Sometimes glossy ads	Pictures, charts, ads of all sorts	Very glossy; Full of color ads of all sorts
Access Tools Ask a Librarian for further details	Online periodical indexes like EBSCOhost and First Search or print periodical indexes like CINAHL, Business Periodicals Index and Education Index	Online periodical indexes like EBSCOhost and First Search or print periodical indexes like CINAHL, Social Sciences Index and Education Index	Online periodical indexes like ProQuest Direct or print periodical indexes like The New York Times Index	Online periodical indexes like EBSCOhost or print periodical indexes like Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature

*Much of the above information can be found in Designs for Active Learning published by Association of College and Research Libraries, 1998.

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Delaware Technical & Community College
Wilmington Campus Library
333 Shipley Street
Wilmington, DE 19801
302.573.5427

Delaware Tech Librarians Comments? Questions? lferris@college.dtcc.edu

Updated 1/2007