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Question
For this discussion, you will address the following prompts:
Explain at least five differences between popular and scholarly sources used in research.
Locate and summarize one peer-reviewed, scholarly source from the Ashford University Library and one popular source that pertain to Argumentative Essay topic on minimum wage. In your summary of each article, comment on the following: biases, reliability, strengths, and limitations.
From the sources you summarized, list and explain at least five visual cues from the peer-reviewed, scholarly source that were not evident in the popular source.
You are required to provide in-text citations of applicable required reading materials and/or any other outside sources you use to support your claims. Provide full reference information of all sources cited at the end of your response.
Answer
Differences between Popular and Scholarly Sources
There are various differences between popular and scholarly sources. In most cases, popular sources are not incorporated in academic research articles unless stated. This is because most of them are considered to lack merit. While popular sources are authored by professional journalists or writers to inform the general audience, scholarly sources are written by academic researchers, faculty members, or scholars for a particular discipline or profession. Scholarly sources cover a specific area or narrowly focused topics while the popular sources cover a broad range of topics. Apart from the differences in the breadth of the topic, scholarly and popular sources have differences in language used. Popular sources use general and easy language that can be understood easily while scholarly sources use technical language that is mostly understood by people in that particular field. The scholarly sources also include citations of sources as well as a bibliography while popular sources do not give citations of the sources that have been used. Lastly, popular sources are short articles while scholarly sources tend to be longer with different sections that include an introduction, methodology, results, discussion, as well as a conclusion.
I have identified one popular source and scholarly source for comparison. The popular source is an article by Noam Scheiber on the subject of minimum wage, specifically the effect of raising the minimum wage on job losses. The author has investigated different studies to come to a conclusion that raising the minimum wage to half of an areas typical wage results in significant job losses (Scheiber, 2017). The article is largely credible since the author quotes results that were got from other studies. The author even mentions the universities that conducted the research that makes the article reliable. Therefore, a major strength of the article is that it utilizes reliable sources in its analysis. The weakness of the article is that it does not outline its basis of analysis.
On the other hand, the scholarly source is by Arindrajit Dube, William T. Lester, and Michael Reich, and it also address the issue on minimum wage by in particular providing estimates of the effects on the implementation of minimum wage on employment flow in the United States. The data provided by the article is reliable since it quotes scholarly sources and utilizes a scientific method. The article confirms that there is a negative effect on employment flows with implementation of minimum wages (Dube, Lister, Reich, 2016). The major strength of the article is that it utilizes a scientific method in research making the results credible.
The five visual cues evident in the scholarly source but absent from popular source include elaborate sections, abstract, citations, bibliography, as well as in-depth analysis.
References
Dube, A., Lester, T. W., & Reich, M. (2016). Minimum wage shocks, employment flows, and labor market frictions. Journal of Labor Economics, 34(3), 663-704.
Scheiber, N. (26 June 2017). How a Rising Minimum Wage Affects Jobs in Seattle. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/business/economy/seattle-minimum-wage.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FMinimum%20Wage
