An important step in writing a term paper or in completing many assignments includes finding information in periodicals . In order to look for the right kind of information in the right places, you first need to understand the assignment. Once you understand the assignment, and the type of information you need to use to write your paper or complete the assignment, you need to know how to distinguish one kind of periodical literature from another. Magazines, journals, yearbooks, proceedings and indexes are all serials.
Magazines are commercial serial publications intended for any of a wide variety of readers.
Some magazines provide news and general information to a popular audience, while others are aimed at professions in various fields. Journals, or scholarly journals , are periodicals generally published by an institution, professional association or learned society, and containing articles that disseminate current information on research and developments in particular subject fields. Scholarly journals always cite their sources in the form of footnotes or bibliographies. Articles are written by scholar in the field or by someone who has done research in the field. The language of scholarly journals is that of the discipline covered.