What are articles?
Articles appear in periodicals -- magazines, journals, and newspapers. An article may be a single-page story in a newspaper, a five-page report in a consumer magazine, or a 30-page study appearing in a medical journal.
For college-level research, it is important to understand The Difference Between a Popular Magazine Article and a Scholarly Journal Article.
Why use articles for research?
Quality control. Articles usually must be approved by an editor or peer review process before publication. This helps ensure quality and accuracy, generally making articles more credible sources of sources of research, information, or news than unevaluated sources such as Web sites.
Current news. Current events are followed and analyzed by news magazines long before they are studied in books.
Current research. Information on the latest products, trends, research, and theories often appears first in magazines and journals.
Particular information. Articles are written on a vast array of topics in every field and for every interest, so they are a good place to look for hard-to-find information written by experts.