Scholarly vs. Popular Media Focused articles - Essay Example

Scholarly V. Popular Articles Scholarly V. Popular Articles Both Scholarly and popular articles have several similar characteristics, both these articles focus on an issue that is experienced by a population and are written to catch the attention of the population. For example: the article (Patterns of Sexual Arousal in Homosexual, Bisexual and Heterosexual Men) written by Jerome A. Cerny and Erick Janssen targets a population of students and educationalist of sexual education and the article No Surprise for Bisexual Men: Report Indicates They Exist, written by David Tuller targets general populations (Cerny, 2011, p.

687 & TULLER, 2011). Both these articles provide insight about previous research, for example: Cerny and Janssen have reported a study conducted by Rieger in their own research and Tuller has reported a study that was published in Archieves of Sexual Behavior. Both provide opinion on a specific issue and both are published for example study conducted by Cerny and Jannsen state that bisexual males are highly aroused by bisexual adult content and Tuller states the males are aroused by both the genders.

The list of similarities between popular and scholarly articles is quite small but there is a huge difference between these forms of articles. In popular articles different sub categories of an issue and the issue are tried to be explored in a limited amount of space and in case of scholarly articles, specific part of an issue or topic is discussed and in-depth information about that particular topic is provided, for example: the article on the study conducted by Cerny and Janssen is 10 page long and discusses the sexual arousal patterns of males who have different orientation, where as the article written by Tuller is less than 1000 words long.

There is a difference between the audiences of both the articles, popular ones are targeted towards everyone who may be and may not be educated, scholarly ones are targeted towards a specific audience who have an academic background related to the area being studied in the article For example: Cerny and Janssen’s article is for those students who study sexual behavior and the article written by Tuller is for the general population. The terminology and vocabulary that is used in scholarly articles is very technical and can hardy be understood by illiterates and those who do not belong to a specific field of education, for example: Cerny and Janssen have used terminologies such as psychophysiology.

In case of popular articles, the vocabulary is easy to understand and any individual can understand the topic that is being discussed. The popular articles are edited by the publishing house itself and the editors may not even have any insight about the issue being talked about, scholarly articles are peer reviewed, this means that these articles are reviewed by people who are in the same field have insight about the issue being discussed, for example the article written by Tuller was published on the website of New York times where editors have knowledge of writing proper English but do not have information about sexual behavior and are not from the relevant field.

The articles written by Cerny and Janssen are published by National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). NCBI is a database of health related material which helps researchers and students in obtaining research for their study. This shows that the credibility of popular articles is lower than the credibility of scholarly articles. The best characteristic of popular articles is that it can be read and understood by every individual, this means it provides information to a vast number of individuals.

In case of scholarly articles, information provides help to the professional in conducting future researches which help to individuals from a specific field in solving the issues faced by the public in the best possible manner. ReferencesCerny, J. A., & Janssen, E. (January 01, 2011). Patterns of Sexual Arousal in Homosexual, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40, 4, 687-697.TULLER, D. (2011, August 22). No Surprise for Bisexual Men - Report Indicates They Exist - NYTimes.com. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia.

Retrieved December 2, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/health/23bisexual.html?_r=0