Overview

Journals (and the articles they contain) are one of the primary formal ways that researchers communicate with each other. Scholars keep up with current research by reading journals that are important in their field, or even by reading articles published by a specific scholar. When they share their own research, they typically write about it in a journal article for publication in a journal they know their colleagues will read. By reading and publishing articles, they contribute to the scholarly conversation.

Scholarly Journals

Journals, just like newspapers, publish periodically – meaning they publish a collection of new articles on a regular schedule. This schedule could be once a month, every three months, once a year, etc. The journal’s name will usually give you a clue to what the articles are about. The Review of Educational Research, for example, publishes education articles. The Journal of Fish Biology  publishes research on fish and fisheries.

Unlike most newspapers, scholarly journals offer rigorous, in-depth information – often original research from experts in a given field. Scholars become very familiar with which journals are important to read to keep up with new research and where they should publish their own ideas so their colleagues will read them. If you pursue a degree or a career that requires reading or publishing your own research, you’ll also start to recognize certain journal names (and certain scholars’ names as well).

In addition to articles with original research or reviews of past research, journals publish:

• book reviews
• editorials (short essays sharing the personal opinion of a researcher on a topic related to the scope of the journal)
• other non-peer-reviewed content

More articles get submitted to scholarly journals than are actually published. It is a competitive process for a researcher to get their article accepted in a prestigious journal. We talk more about this process in the chapter on peer review.

Scholarly Journal Articles

Journal articles are one of the primary ways that researchers communicate with each other. Most journal articles follow a similar structure, which can be helpful to understand to make reading them quicker and easier.

Before we explore articles in depth, complete the following activity:

Notice the layout and section headings of this journal article. They are very similar to the organization of the scholarly article about cats you saw in the chapter about popular and scholarly sources. In the next chapter, we’ll discuss the purpose of each section and point out how to use information about the article to create citations.