Journals and magazines are also referred to as periodicals because their content is published periodically, ie. weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Examples of periodicals are: Newsweek which is published weekly or Good Housekeeping which is published monthly.

Although journals and magazines are both considered periodicals, they are different in both content and nature. A journal refers to a scientific, literary or scholarly periodical devoted to a specific subject. The articles that are published in journals are authored by specialists in a particular field of study and target readers with expertise in the same field of study. An example of a journal is Educational Research. A magazine refers to a periodical that contains articles on a variety of subjects. Articles included in magazines are usually written by staff writers or journalists. Magazines usually include an abundance of advertisements and pictures. For more information please visit the Recognizing a Scholarly Journal section of our website.

Periodicals, such as journals and magazines, are usually available in two different formats: print or electronic. Electronic formats of a journal or magazine can be made available through an online database or through the Internet as an individual website. Online databases are searchable, electronic collections of either full text documents or citations and abstracts from a variety of sources. Most online databases are accessible via the Internet from database vendors. In order to access the database, an organization or institution, such as a college library, will subscribe to the database because it fills a particular research based need.