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Health Care Administration

This research guide is created specifically for Health Care Administration Courses and topics such as Health Equity, Medicare Reimbursements and Health Management. It will help with library resources like finding articles, using databases, and much more!

Scholarly versus Popular

Keep in mind that not all information is created equal. You can use the image below to remind you of the differences.

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly article/ literature is written by:

  • researchers who are experts in their field.
  • employees of colleges, universities, or other institutions of education or research.

examples of academic journals are:

    • Journal of American History 
    •  Psychological Review
    • Nature
    • Annals of the National Academy of Science
    • Acta Archaeologia
    • James Joyce Quarterly
    • Journal of the American Musicological Society
    • Harvard Business Review

http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/ecollege/popular.htm

Peer-review (refereed) process: journal editor sends article to other discipline scholars (author’s peers) to review the article to decide if it should be published in the journal based on relevance to the field, the quality of the research, and other criteria with suggested possible changes.

What to look for to determine is the article is peer-reviewed:

  • An abstract, methods, findings/results, conclusion
  • Serious look – no fun pictures – graphs and figures
  • Lengthy list of references citing other scholarly sources
  • Received and accepted date

If you are uncertain, you can check the journal’s guidelines for authors.

Popular Articles

Magazine or Newspaper articles

Popular literature is written by journalists/writers who are employed by the magazine/newspaper; cover news & current events in a field, profiles of people, places, or events for the general audience.

examples of popular literature are:

  • The New York Times
  • Newsweek
  • National Geographic
  • Psychology Today
  • Natural History
  • The Nation
  • New Republic
  • Science News
 
What features to look for: 
  • color pictures
  • 1 to 2 pages
  • written by staff writer
  • no references or bibliography (possibly a few)

Trade or Professional Articles

Trade & Professional articles

Trade and professional literature resembles scholarly literature in that it is written by people working in the field. However, the articles in trade and professional journals cover news in the field, brief reports on research, and opinions about trends and events.

examples of trade and professional journals are:

  • American Libraries
  • AdWeek
  • Drug Store News
  • Anthropology Newsletter
  • Back Stage Magazine

http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/ecollege/popular.htm