| Purpose |
- Entertainment;
- General news;
- Selling products and advertising;
- Promoting a specific viewpoint.
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- Industry specific news;
- Reporting trends and new directions (sometimes including original research).
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- Reporting original research and/or experimentation;
- Offering new information for a specific academic discipline.
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| Style |
- Short articles;
- Easy to read;
- For a general audience.
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- Some short and some longer articles;
- Harder to read than popular publications, but still fairly easy to read;
- Makes use of industry-specific vocabulary.
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- Long articles (with occasional exceptions);
- Make use of discipline-specific vocabulary;
- For scholars and students of that discipline.
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| Authors |
- Usually staff writers;
- Qualifications usually not given;
- May not be identified at all.
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- Mixture of authors, some staff writers, some academics, and some working professionals;
- Credentials typically given
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- Experts in the field (usually academics);
- Credentials will be listed;
- Contact information usually given.
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| References |
- Sources/References Cited lists are almost never included;
- In-text references (ex. “According to experts”) are usually all that is given.
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- Depending upon the subject, Sources/References Cited lists are sometimes given, sometimes not.
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Sources are always cited:
- Footnotes;
- Endnotes;
- Bibliography at end of article.
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| Appearance |
- Glossy cover and pages;
- Lots of photos and graphics;
- Usually attractive and eye-catching.
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- Glossy cover and pages;
- Lots of photos and graphics;
- Usually attractive and eye-catching;
- Will typically look like a magazine.
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- Typically dull covers and pages;
- Few or no photos and graphics (depends on discipline);
- May have identical cover design from issue to issue.
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| Advertising |
- Many advertisements (sometimes more ads than articles);
- Advertising a wide variety of unrelated products.
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- Many advertisements, usually (but not always) related to the topic of the periodical;
- Sometimes advertising a wide variety of unrelated products.
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- Few or no advertisements;
- Advertised products relate to the topic of the periodical.
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