Scholarly Journals - Which looks more scholarly?

Cover image of Psycholgy Today

Psychology Today

  1. Note the name of this journal: Psychology Today. The term "today" suggests it's popular rather than scholarly.
  2. Note the large headline: "The Love Fix". It's gimmicky, designed to attract your attention on a magazine stand so you'll buy it. It's not descriptive about any particular article, or the issue as a whole. Scholarly journals don't try to sell individual issues.
  3. Note the colour photograph which takes up much of the cover. It's also designed to attract your attention, in the hopes you'll buy it. Scholarly journals don't do this.

This is NOT a scholarly journal. Even though it looks educational and might have intelligent, useful articles, it's popular, designed to make you want to buy it at the magazine stand.

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