Periodical databases can quickly and easily provide access to full-text articles from many sources, but how can you tell if these sources are appropriate and acceptable for your research? Use these links  to help you determine whether or not a source is popular or scholarly.

• Scholarly vs Popular Chart - Use the guidelines in this chart to help you understand the differences between types of publications 
• Simon Fraser University Library - An explanation and more in-depth treatment of the different types of publications, and tools to use to help you differentiate between them.

Each discipline has its own set of associated publications, or "literature." Use this link to see a  brief overview of how disciplinary literatures are structured, and where different types of publications fit in to the structure.

• How the Literature is Structured - From the Olin-Kroch-Uris Libraries at Cornell University