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HMCD 644 - Program Planning and Evaluation

How to distinguish between types of periodicals

When writing a paper or conducting academic research, you’ll come across many different types of sources, including periodical articles. Periodical articles can be comprised of news accounts, opinion, commentary, scholarly analysis, and/or reports of research findings. There are three main types of periodicals that you will encounter: scholarly/academic, trade, and popular (for the purposes of this class, we'll ignore popular periodicals.  The chart below will help you identify which type of periodical your article comes from. 

Periodicals chart

Text and chart adapted from the WSU University Libraries' How to Distinguish between types of Periodicals guide

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