Difference Between Journal and Magazine

Journal vs Magazine
 

We keep hearing words like journal, magazines, and periodicals every now and then. Despite reading different publications, people hardly pay attention to this classification and confuse between magazines and journals thinking them to be interchangeable. Of course, there are similarities and overlapping, but there are subtle differences too that will be highlighted in this article.

Magazine

When you are waiting for your turn at a barber’s salon or outside a doctor’s cabin, you often find some reading material spread over a table for all the people. When you go out to the market, you see many different colorful books with soft covers that look very enticing and appealing. These are periodicals that are published weekly, monthly, or bimonthly and are referred to as magazines. The best examples of magazines are Reader’s Digest, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek etc. In every country, there are magazines that are published at regular intervals and carry news, views, articles, opinions, remarks, interviews, photos, events etc. that might be of interest to the people. Magazines are always aimed at the general public and contain material that is liked by people in general and is neither too hard nor technical in nature. Magazines carry colorful photographs to catch the attention of the people and the vocabulary used in magazines is easy to understand for the common people.

The articles published in a magazine are interesting but not written by experts in a field. They are not scholarly in nature and kept short to keep the reader interested. One characteristic of a magazine is that there are both general as well as magazines devoted to a particular field or subject. So we have a magazine like People that has content on politics, movies, entertainment, sports etc and we also have Psychology Today, a magazine devoted to people’s behavior and social interactions. There are magazines about movie world, and there are magazines devoted to sports, even a single sport like golf or tennis.

Journal

Journal is a word that refers to a periodical containing article written by experts in a particular field. This is a publication not aimed at the general public but specialists and experts. Most of the articles inside a journal are written by researchers keeping in mind the viewpoint of research scholars. The language used in articles is technical in nature that is understood by researchers only. Journals are known to carry original research papers. Journals are specific to a particular field of study such as linguistics, writing, medicine, photography etc.

What is the difference between Journal and Magazine?

• A magazine is a periodical like a journal, but it differs from a journal in content and purpose.

• Magazines are for the general public and carry articles, news, views, interviews, opinions, analysis etc that is of interest for the common people. Journals, on the other hand, meant to support academic research and carry articles written by experts

• Magazines carry colorful illustrations and photographs while there is no such attraction in journals

• Journals make use of technical jargon as the intended audience is often researchers and specialists. On the other hand, the language used in articles of a magazine is simple and easy to understand

• Bibliography and citations are essential in a journal while they are rarely found in a magazine

• Magazine can cover different subjects like politics, entertainment, sports etc or it can devote itself to a single field like tennis or interior decoration. Journals always pertain to a particular academic field such as linguistics, medicine, law etc.