Final answer:
Scholarly sources are written by experts and are peer-reviewed, providing in-depth analysis for academic writing, while popular sources offer broader overviews suitable for general understanding.
Step-by-step explanation:
The differences between scholarly and popular sources are significant, especially in the realm of academic writing. Scholarly sources, including academic journals, books, and reports, are typically written by experts in the field and undergo a rigorous peer-review process prior to publication.
This peer-review ensures that the content is scrutinized for its accuracy and contributes to the evolution of knowledge within the respective discipline. These sources tend to have a specialized vocabulary and provide in-depth analysis on narrowed topics, making them indispensable for advanced research projects.
On the other hand, popular sources are often found in magazines or general-interest publications and are written for a broad audience. They provide introductory or background information, which can be useful for obtaining a general understanding of a subject.
Although these sources are not typically suited for in-depth research, they can help expand perspective and aid in narrowing down research topics.
Academic writing benefits from both types of sources—scholarly sources provide deep insights and credible information, whereas popular sources can contextualize a topic and make it more accessible to the general reader.