| Criteria | Popular | Scholarly | Trade | Grey Literature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose/Intent | To inform, entertain, or persuade. often published or produced by commercial organizations. | To inform, report, or make available original research, promote scholarly communication, or advance knowledge. Could be primary or secondary. | To provide news, trends, or practical information or examine problems or concerns in a particular field, trade, or industry. | To disseminate research quickly or respond to a public issue. |
| Audience | General public. | Scholars, researchers, and students of specific discipline or field. | Practitioners of a particular field, trade, or industry. | Professionals and researchers in the same field or industry and/or policy makers. |
| Creator | Professional writers, journalists, freelance writers, or other kinds of creators. | Scholars or researchers with extensive credentials and experience in the specific discipline or field and usually associated with a university or other organization. | Professionals or freelance writers or creators with experience in a particular field, trade, or industry. | Individual scholars, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and institutions, businesses, and think tanks but not through traditional publishers. |
| Language/Tone | Less formal, non-technical, and maybe even entertaining language. | Specialized terminology or jargon from the specific discipline or field. | Specialized terminology or jargon used in the field or industry. | Specialized terminology or jargon used in the field or industry. |
| References | Sources often attributed, but are not cited in academic style. | Sources always cited. | Sources occasionally, but not usually cited. This depends on the publication. | Sources are typically, but not always cited. |
| Timeliness | Can be published days, hours, or even minutes after current events. Popular magazine articles may appear several weeks later. | Published months or years after current events. | Published weeks or months after current events. | Timeliness varies. |
| Accountability | Content may be evaluated by professional editors, but not by experts in the field. | Usually reviewed and critically evaluated by a subject expert or board of subject experts (peer review); published or produced by a scholarly organization or society (university, association, commercial enterprise, etc.). | Content may be evaluated by experts in the field; often published or produced by a trade association. | Expert review differs for different kinds of grey literature. Many may not be reviewed at all. |
Adapted from "Popular, Scholarly, Trade, and Grey Literature Sources" by The Teaching and Learning Team, George Mason University, licensed under CC BY 4.0.