Although scientific articles have changed some – for example, Isaac Newton wrote about the fun he had with prisms in a 1672 scientific article – the basics remain the same. This ensures that published research becomes part of the archive of scientific knowledge upon which other scientists can build. Strange as it seems, the most efficient way to tackle a new article may be through a piecemeal approach, reading some but not all the sections and not necessarily in their order of appearance. For example, the abstract of an article will summarize its key points, but this section can often be dense and difficult to understand.
The articles in scientific journals are different from news articles in another way – they must undergo a process called peer review, in which other scientists (the professional peers of the authors) evaluate the quality and merit of research before recommending whether or not it should be published (see our Peer Review module). This is a much lengthier and more rigorous process than the editing and fact-checking that goes on at news organizations. The reason for this thorough evaluation by peers is that a scientific article is more than a snapshot of what is going on at a certain time in a scientist’s research. Instead, it is a part of what is collectively called the scientific literature, a global archive of scientific knowledge. When published, each article expands the library of scientific literature available to all scientists and contributes to the overall knowledge base of the discipline of science.
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Within a scientific article, scientists present their research questions, the methods by which the question was approached, and the results they achieved using those methods. In addition, they present their analysis of the data and describe some of the interpretations and implications of their work. Because these articles report new work for the first time, they are called primary literature.
However, to understand how science is disseminated through these journals, you must first understand how the articles themselves are formatted and what information they contain. While some details about format vary between journals and even between articles in the same journal, there are broad characteristics that all scientific journal articles share. These journals are diverse and can be distinguished according to their field of specialization. Among the most broadly targeted and competitive are journals like Cell, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Nature, and Science that all publish a wide variety of research articles (see Figure 1 for an example). Cell focuses on all areas of biology, NEJM on medicine, and both Science and Nature publish articles in all areas of science. Scientists submit manuscripts for publication in these journals when they feel their work deserves the broadest possible audience.
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These journals tend to publish broad-based research focused on specific disciplines, such as chemistry, geology, neurology, nuclear physics, etc. In addition to these regular opinion pieces, on Fridays the Journal publishes a religion-themed op-ed, titled “Houses of Worship”, written by a different author each week. Articles published open access are peer-reviewed and made freely available for everyone to read, download and reuse in line with the user license displayed on the article. He served as an adviser to air-ground operations of the Shah’s air force, consisting of T-6 aircraft that had been used to train pilots in World War II some 20 years earlier. Secord said the planes were reconfigured to add ordnance stations to battle communist-backed Kurds in the northern quadrant of Iran.
Understanding Scientific Journals and Articles: How to approach reading journal articles
Unlike the common “Letters to the Editor” of a newspaper, however, the letters in scientific journals are usually critical responses to the authors of a research study in which alternative interpretations are outlined. When such a letter is received by a journal editor, it is typically given to the original authors so that they can respond, and both the trial balance rules letter and response are published together. The team from the Cornell lab wrote a response supporting their initial conclusions, and Sibley’s team followed that up with a response of their own in 2007 (Fitzpatrick et al., 2006; Sibley at al., 2007). As expected, the research has generated significant scientific controversy and, in addition, has captured the attention of the public, spreading the story of the controversy into the popular media.
For more information about this story see The Case of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker module. Launched as a quarterly in 2008, the magazine grew to 12 issues a year for 2014.109 The magazine is inserted into the weekend U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal and is available on WSJ.com and in the newspaper’s iPad app. 2023 marked 200 years since Thomas Wakley founded The Lancet with the vision that it should be more than a medical journal.
- In 1967 he led air operations and played a key role in the Ban Naden Raid, a successful attack on a prisoner-of-war camp leading to the rescue of mostly Laotian allies of South Vietnam and the United States.
- For example, the abstract of an article will summarize its key points, but this section can often be dense and difficult to understand.
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- See personal stories from the global research community on misinformation, public exposure, online abuse and other key issues.
- Learning to read scientific articles is a skill, and like any other skill, it requires practice and experience to master.
- Instead, it is a part of what is collectively called the scientific literature, a global archive of scientific knowledge.
Scientists publish their original research in scientific journals, which are fundamentally different from news magazines. The articles in scientific journals are not written by financial performance definition journalists – they are written by scientists. Scientific articles are not sensational stories intended to entertain the reader with an amazing discovery, nor are they news stories intended to summarize recent scientific events, nor even records of every successful and unsuccessful research venture.
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This led to a scandal that dominated headlines in 1986 and 1987, with televised hearings and indictments. “To be a faculty member you had to have a graduate degree,” Secord said. So, to his surprise and chagrin, he received orders to study English at the University of Oklahoma. Secord, who had been living in a Daytona Beach-area assisted-living facility, did a lengthy interview with The News-Journal about his life and family that was published in August. Discover our large collection of Social Sciences and Humanities journals and books, highlighting historical context, current developments, theories, applications, trends and more. Keep up to date with health and medical developments to stimulate research and improve patient care. Search our books and journals covering education, reference information, decision support and more.
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