Using scholarly sources is expected when writing an academic paper. "Because of the level of authority and credibility evident in scholarly sources, they contribute a great deal to the overall quality of your writing assignments."
Did you know that authors of scholarly journal articles are required to document and ensure the sources of the facts, ideas, and methods they used to arrive at their insights and conclusions can be confirmed? Similarly, identifying and discussing the merits of opposing viewpoints further adds crediblity to the articles and the authors' reputation.
Conversely, as you know, authors can make any type of claim in articles posted on the web. While the information in the articles might be useful for your topic, they may lack the evidence you need to assess the truth of that information. Hence, articles published in popular magazines are not required to document evidence that either supports or negates their information. However, scholarly journal articles, unlike web-based or popular magazine articles, are designed and structured to provide the elements necessary for most people to evaluate the validity and truth of an author's position.
Lastly, an added benefit to using scholarly sources is that their bibliographies can aid in finding other sources that might be useful for your paper.