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InfoSkills for Humanities and Digital Sciences

InfoSkills @ TiU

Scholarly books vs. scholarly articles

  Scholarly books Scholarly articles
Focus Broader -- overview of a topic (in-depth analysis) with a broad historical perspective. Narrower -- detailed information on some particular aspect of a topic, but not much historical overview.
Quality control Quality checked by editors (subject experts working for an academic publisher). Quality checked during peer review process.
Currency Less current -- it takes a number of years to write, edit, and publish books, so they don't cover the most recent developments. More current -- articles take less time to write and publish, so they cover new developments in a field of study sooner than books.
Length Longer -- most scholarly books average 200-300 pages.  Shorter -- articles typically run from 10 to 30 pages.
 

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