Q. What Is A Trade Journal? - LibAnswers

WHAT IS A TRADE JOURNAL?

A trade journal (also known as a trade magazine) is a periodical that targets a specific industry or trade group. Trade journals in particular focus on one industry and provide in-depth information on trends, new products and other topics of interest to people working in that industry.

A list of general characteristics

• authors usually members of the field
• articles focus on current topics and developments in the field
• may mention relevant experiments but will not be described in detail
• may include a short bibliography
• ads geared toward the field
• include job advertisements and conference announcements
• While articles from trade journals are often considered scholarly, they are not typically peer-reviewed.

WHERE DO I FIND TRADE JOURNALS IN THE LIBRARY?

• Business Source Complete: An EBSCO database, providing indexing and abstracts for the scholarly business journals back as far as 1886. Searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,300 journals. Vendor Tutorial

• ABI/INFORM Collection: The database features thousands of full-text journals, dissertations, working papers, key business and economics periodicals.

WHEN SHOULD I USE THIS TYPE OF SOURCE?

Following are some of the ways trade journals can be helpful:

• Career Opportunities
• Conference Announcements
• Editorials and Letters to the Editor: Editorials will reflect current issues and concerns within a profession. These could be useful to a researcher looking for "hot" topics that could be further researched in professional journals.
• Product Advertisements: Advertisements in trade publications tend to be for products and services that are specific to the profession. For example, a police magazine like Police Chief might run advertisements for bullet‐proof vests or newly developed night vision goggles.
• Trends and Recent Developments: Trade publications will often discuss recent developments in an industry, occupation, or profession. A construction magazine, for example, will likely announce new projects that are currently underway in a particular city, state, or country and also announce which companies are involved in the projects.

See Also:

• What is a periodical?
• Introduction to Library Search: View this video to learn the basics of using the library search tool, powered by Primo.