Journals, newspapers and magazines

   Such sources as journals, newspaper and magazines are effective tools for improving your writing and adding fresh information to your research paper. Newspapers are especially great in providing latest news and helping to prove a point, argue a statement or simply make your writing more sophisticated. The style in which articles in these periodicals are written also could serve as an example for your work. 

   When including information taken from journal/newspaper articles you must remember that it varies in their attitudes, reliability of the facts presented and timing. 

   Such sources as newspapers and magazines provide articles written by journalists and free lance writers. However it is almost impossible to find a newspaper article written by a professor or a serious scholar. In general these editions are intended for the masses without a specific interest or educational background. Therefore if you are about to write a strictly academic paper it is best to omit using information from a popular magazine. Often times it does not provide valid and trustworthy data. It is a good idea to use some information from these sources but avoid making any conclusions based solely on them. 

   Journals on the other hand intend to provide a profound insight into the latest innovations, talk about experiments and their results, and discuss debatable issues based on scientific approach. These editions hire scholars and scientists specializing in various fields, therefore information taken from pages of a journal will most likely be credible and full of reliable facts. You can easily refer to journals when stating some facts for the reason of their dependability. 

   Needless to say you must state what sources and where you have used in your writing. Depending on what citation style you are required to use, look for an example of academic sources citation. Refer to the citation styles needed in your particular case