Interlibrary Loan Electronic Journals Lib. The terms journal, periodical, serial, magazine, or newspaper refer to publications that are published in a numbered sequence, usually on a regular basis, e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, bimonthly, etc.
Books usually offer a lengthy overview of a broad subject area.
If your prof or TA have asked you to find information published within the last 2 or 3 years on a very specific subject, then you are more likely to find that information in the journal literature. News publications, such as Macleans, are aimed at a general audience and tend to have short articles covering a broad range of topics. Scholarly journals, such as the Journal of Animal Science, are aimed at a very specific audience and tend to have longer articles which often include a bibliography of sources to which the author has referred. Many scholarly journals are refereed, that is manuscripts of articles are evaluated by subject specialists and the editor, before being accepted for publication. A formal comparison of scholarly publications versus popular news type publications has been prepared.