What is a popular magazine or newspaper?

Popular magazines and newspapers are published to inform or entertain readers on general interest topics. Magazine and news articles are usually short and written in simple language. Examples of magazines include Time and Sports Illustrated. The audience is the general population, and the authors of articles are usually staff journalists or freelance writers. Popular magazines often contain lots of advertising and graphics. Newspaper articles will be published shortly after a news event occurs and will often be brief and may contain graphics. Examples of newspapers are The New York Times and Chicago Tribune.

How do I find popular magazine or newspaper articles?

In many of the library's databases, there's an easy way to find popular magazine or newspaper articles. If you're using Academic Search Complete, on the Advanced Search page, scroll down to find a check box under "Limit your results" that shows "Periodical" or "Newspaper."

After choosing either of these options, run your search in Academic Search Complete. This should limit your search results to just the articles that are published in popular magazines or newspapers. This will eliminate peer-reviewed and trade publications from your results. 

There's another way to access popular magazine or newspaper articles: After performing a search in Academic Search Complete, you can adjust your search results. In your results list, on the left-hand side of the page under "Source Types" there's also check boxes that say "Magazines" or "Newspapers."