Usually includes pictures or photographs, and is often slick in appearance. Rarely provide footnotes or a bibliography. Substantive news or general interest periodicals are an excellent source of background or summary information. Business Week, Fortune, National Geographic, Christianity Today, Aviation News and Space Technology. Popular magazines may also be a source of background or summary information but their primary focus is to entertain their readers and to promote the products of their advertisers.
Sensational magazines have little or no value for typical academic research.
Libraries and individuals in the field are typical subscribers. Written by researchers, scholars, experts in the field, etc. Typically published by a scholarly professional association or university press. The audience for these articles is other researchers, professionals, or academics. The language of the articles assumes the reader has a background or special knowledge in the field.