They are also called journals, periodicals, newspapers or magazines. Serials, whether they are popular or scholarly in nature, all contain current knowledge in any and all fields. They are usually short articles written by journalists. The reader must determine the focus and credibility of the information. Alternatively, professors publish in scholarly journals to communicate the results of their studies to other academics.
Scholarly articles can be lengthy and are factual and written by an expert in the field.
Primary and secondary sources of information are determined by their origin and discipline. For instance, in the sciences and social sciences when the results of an experiment are first published, that article becomes a primary source of information. In these disciplines, secondary sources of information are those which reproduce published information with little or no additional scholarship. By contrast, in the humanities most scholarly work is considered to be a secondary source of information while primary sources are original documents such as diaries, eyewitness accounts and the like. Whether serials are scholarly or popular, the same library procedures are used to find articles on any topic.