Running Head: ACADEMIC AND PUBLIC SOURCES 1

Academic and Public Sources

Institutional Affiliation

Date
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In research writing, one has to utilize various sources of information which can be
obtained from either a public source or an academic source. The academic sources of
information on a research topic are the sources written by professionals as well as researchers
in the field that one is interested in researching. These sources are written in formal language
and utilize professional terms that are relatable to the field that they are written about. These
sources receive peer reviews and edition from professionals and may take years for them to
be qualified for publications. They also author’s initials contain citations as a way of
acknowledging academic work done by other authors that have been utilized. The target
audience for the academic sources is the academic researcher in the field of study that the
sources are related with (Harris, 2017). In addition, there are public sources which contain
general information for the general public. The public sources use language that is casual,
informal and may at times include slang and are easily and quickly published because they
simply provide general information to the public. The public sources do not receive any peer
review and the authors of these sources may not provide references or include any citations
and the length of the writing is generally short, usually fewer pages compared to academic
sources. The perfect examples of the public sources are the newspaper articles and
periodicals such as Rolling Stone, Time or Newsweek.
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REFERENCES

Harris, R. A. (2017). Using sources effectively: Strengthening your writing and avoiding

plagiarism. Routledge.