Magazines are considered "popular" resources.  They usually share the the following characteristics:

•   Written for a general audience

•   Written by a staff of writers

•   Heavily illustrated

•   Contain advertisements

Books in the UIW library are considered scholarly resources. 

Journals are considered scholarly resources.  Other terms used to describe journals are academic, peer-reviewed, or refereed.  Journals share the following characteristics:

•   Produced for a highly educated audience

•   Articles are written by subject matter experts and may be peer-reviewed*

•   Illustrations tend to be charts, graphs, tables

•   Articles include bibliographies (works cited pages)

•   Few or no advertisements

* Article manuscripts are read and reviewed by members of an editorial board who determine whether or not the article is suitable for publication.  See the following tab Peer Review Process for more information.