Scientific journal



Scientific journal

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For a broader class of publications, which include scientific journals, see Academic journal.

For a discussion of the general structure and use of methods of communication in science, see Scientific literature.

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Nature, Science and PNAS

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Most journals are highly specialized, although some of the oldest journals such as Nature publish articles and scientific papers across a wide range of scientific fields. Scientific journals contain articles that have been peer reviewed, in an attempt to ensure that articles meet the journal's standards of quality, and scientific validity. Although scientific journals are superficially similar to professional magazines, they are actually quite different. Issues of a scientific journal are rarely read casually, as one would read a magazine. The publication of the results of research is an essential part of the scientific method. If they are describing experiments or calculations, they must supply enough details that an independent researcher could repeat the experiment or calculation to verify the results. Each such journal article becomes part of the permanent scientific record.

The history of scientific journals dates from 1665, when the French Journal des sçavans and the English Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society first began systematically publishing research results. Over a thousand, mostly ephemeral, were founded in the 18th century, and the number has increased rapidly after that. (D. A. Kronick, "History of Scientific and Technical Periodicals," 2nd ed. Scarecrow, 1976)

These articles can be used in research and graduate education. Some classes are partially devoted to the explication of classic articles, and seminar classes can consist of the presentation by each student of a classic or current paper. In a scientific research group or academic department it is usual for the content of current scientific journals to be discussed in journal clubs.

The standards that a journal uses to determine publication can vary widely. Some journals, such as Nature, Science, PNAS or Physical Review Letters, have a reputation of publishing articles which mark a fundamental breakthrough in their respective fields. In many fields, an informal hierarchy of scientific journals exists; the most prestigious journal in a field tends to be the most selective in terms of the articles it will select for publication. It is also common for journals to have a regional focus, specializing in publishing papers from a particular country or other geographic region.

Articles tend to be highly technical, representing the latest theoretical research and experimental results in the field of science covered by the journal. They are often incomprehensible to anyone except for researchers in the field and advanced students. In some subjects this is inevitable given the nature of the content.

|Contents |

|[hide] |

|1 Types of articles |

|2 Electronic publishing |

|3 Cost |

|4 Copyright |

|5 See also |

|6 References |

|7 External links |

[pic][edit] Types of articles

There are several types of journal articles; the exact terminology and definitions vary by field and specific journal, but often include:

• Letters (also called communications, and not to be confused with letters to the editor) are short descriptions of important current research findings which are usually fast-tracked for immediate publication because they are considered urgent.

• Research notes are short descriptions of current research findings which are considered less urgent or important than Letters

• Articles are usually between five and twenty pages and are a complete descriptions of current original research finding, but there are considerable variations between scientific fields and journals: 80-page articles are not rare in mathematics or theoretical computer science.

• Supplemental articles contain a large volume of tabular data that is the result of current research and may be dozens or hundreds of pages with mostly numerical data. Some journals now only publish this data electronically on the internet.

• Review articles do not cover original research but rather accumulate the results of many different articles on a particular topic into a coherent narrative about the state of the art in that field. Examples of reviews include the 'Nature Reviews' series of journals and the 'Trends in' series, which invite experts to write on their specialization and then have the article peer-reviewed before accepting the article for publication. Other journals, such as the Current Opinion series, are less rigorous in peer-reviewing each article and instead rely on the author to present an accurate and unbiased view. Review articles provide information about the topic, and also provide journal references to the original research.

The formats of journal articles vary, but many follow the general IMRAD scheme recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Such articles begin with an abstract, which is a one-to-four-paragraph summary of the paper. The introduction describes the background for the research including a discussion of similar research. The materials and methods or experimental section provides specific details of how the research was conducted. The results and discussion section describes the outcome and implications of the research, and the conclusion section places the research in context and describes avenues for further exploration.

In addition to the above, some scientific journals such as Science will include a news section where scientific developments (often involving political issues) are described. These articles are often written by science journalists and not by scientists. In addition some journals will include an editorial section and a section for letters to the editor. While these are articles published within a journal, they are not generally regarded as scientific journal articles because they have not been peer-reviewed.

[edit] Electronic publishing

It has been argued that peer-reviewed paper journals are in the process of being replaced by electronic publishing, in its various forms.

One form is the online equivalent of the conventional paper journal. By 2006, almost all scientific journals have, while retaining their peer-review process, established electronic versions; a number have even moved entirely to electronic publication. Most academic libraries, similarly, buy the electronic version, and purchase a paper copy only for the most important or most used titles.

There is usually a delay of several months after an article is written before it is published in a journal and this makes paper journals not an ideal format for announcing the latest research. Many journals now publish the final papers in their electronic version as soon as they are ready, without waiting for the assembly of a complete issue, as is necessary in paper. In many fields where even greater speed is wanted, such as physics, the role of the journal at disseminating the latest research has largely been replaced by preprint databases such as . Almost all such articles are eventually published in traditional journals, which still provide an important role in quality control, archiving papers, and establishing scientific credit.

[edit] Cost

Many scientists and librarians have long protested the cost of journals, especially as they see these payments going to large for-profit publishing houses. To allow their researchers online access to journals, universities generally purchase site licenses, permitting access from anywhere in the university--and, with appropriate authorization, by university-affiliated users at home or elsewhere. These may be quite expensive, sometimes much more than the cost for a print subscription - although this reflects the number of people who will be using the license; a print subscription is the cost for one person to receive the journal, while a site-license can let sometimes thousands of people access it.

Publications by scholarly societies, also known as not-for-profit-publishers (NFP), usually cost less than commercial publishers, but the prices of their scientific journals are still usually several thousand dollars a year. However, this money is generally used to fund the activities of the scientific societies that run such journals, or is invested in providing further scholarly resources for scientists, and thus the money remains in and benefits the scientific sphere.

Despite the transition to electronic publishing the serials crisis persists.

Concerns about cost and open access have led to the creation of free-access journals such as the Public Library of Science family and partly-open or reduced-cost journals such as the Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP). However, professional editors still have to be paid and PLoS still relies heavily on donations from foundations to cover the majority of its operating costs; resources that smaller journals do not often have access to.

An article titled "Online or Invisible?" [1] has used statistical arguments to show that electronic publishing online, and to some extent open access, both provide wider dissemination and increase the average number of citations an article receives. Lawrence postulates that papers that are easier to access are naturally used more often and therefore cited more often. However, this is more an argument in favour of disseminating research online, rather than for open access per se.

[edit] Copyright

In most cases, the author of an article is required to transfer the copyright to the journal publisher. Publishers claim this is necessary in order to protect author's rights, and to coordinate permissions for reprints or other use. Many authors, especially those active in the open access movement, find this unsatisfactory, and would prefer a situation in which they give the publisher an irrevocable license to publish, but retain the other rights themselves.

Even while retaining the copyright to an articles, most journals allow certain rights to their authors. These rights usually include the ability to reuse parts of the paper in the author's future work, and allow him to distribute a limited number of copies. In the print format, such copies are called reprints; in the electronic format they are called postprints. Some publishers, for example the American Physical Society also grant the author the right to post and update the article on the author's or employer's website and on free e-print servers, to grant permission to others to use or reuse figures, and even to reprint the article as long as no fee is charged.[2] The rise of open access journals, in which the author retains the copyright but must pay a publication charge, such as the Public Library of Science family of journals is another recent response to copyright concerns.

[edit] See also

To find related topics in a list, see List of scientific journals.

• Academic conference

• Academic journals

• Citation index

• Citebase

• Citeseer

• Google Scholar

• Journal Club

• Mathematical journal

• Open access

• Open access journal

• Public Library of Science

• Science magazine

[edit] References

1. ^ Lawrence, Steve. Online Or Invisible?. NEC Research Institute.

2. ^ APS Copyright Policies and Frequently Asked Questions.

• A.J.Meadows, ed. The Scientific Journal. London : Aslib, c1979. ISBN 0851421180

• R.E.Abel et al. "Scholarly Publishing: Books Journals, Publishers, and Libraries in the Twentieth Century" N.Y.: Wiley, 2002. ISBN 0471219290

• D.W.King et al. "Scientific Journals in the United States: their Production, Use, and Economics. Stroudsberg, PA: Hutchinson-Ross, 1981 ISBN 0879333804

[edit] External links

• Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science (online book) by Charles Bazerman

• 'Free at Last: The Future of Peer-Reviewed Journals' by Stevan Harnad

• Bibliography of Findings on the Open Access Impact Advantage

• Links to the world's electronic journals

• Electronic publishing in science: changes and risks by Otto Kinne

• The scientific communication life-cycle model by Bo-Christer Björk

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IMRAD

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|[pic] |This article needs additional citations for verification. |

| |Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. |

| |(July 2007) |

IMRAD is an acronym for Introduction, Methods, Results And Discussion. It relates to the standard main structure of a scientific paper, which typically includes these four sections in this order:

• Introduction - why and where was the study undertaken? What was the purpose?

• Methods & Materials - how was the study done? What materials and methods were used?

• Results - what did the study find?

• Discussion - what might it mean, why does it matter, what next? And, last but not least; How does it fit in with what other researchers have found?

Many scientific journals prefer this main structure for their articles. The IMRAD structure is explicitly recommended in the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication" issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). It is briefly presented in section IV.A.1.a. of the 2007 version of their highly influential Vancouver guidelines:

The text of observational and experimental articles is usually (but not necessarily) divided into sections with the headings Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. This so-called “IMRAD” structure is not simply an arbitrary publication format, but rather a direct reflection of the process of scientific discovery. Long articles may need subheadings within some sections (especially the Results and Discussion sections) to clarify their content. Other types of articles, such as case reports, reviews, and editorials, are likely to need other formats.

Even if the IMRAD main structure disposition originate in the empirical sciences, it now appears as a possible article format in academic journals in all kinds of disciplines. The IMRAD structure is also recommended in the 5th edition of the publication manual of the American Psychological Association (APA style). A main explanation for the success of the quite rigid and superficial IMRAD structure is found in the modern researchers need for speed when reviewing literature in their field, as the format allows the reader to pick those parts of the article that is of particular interest to the readers purpose.

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Academic journal

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Scientific journals are one type of academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research. Content typically takes the form of articles presenting original research, review articles, and book reviews. Academic or professional publications that are not peer-reviewed are usually called professional magazines.

The term "academic journal" applies to scholarly publications in all fields; this article discusses the aspects common to all academic field journals. Scientific journals and journals of the quantitative social sciences vary in form and function from journals of the humanities and qualitative social sciences; their specific aspects are separately discussed. The similar American and British journal publication systems are primarily discussed here; practices differ in other regions of the world.

|Contents |

|[hide] |

|1 Scholarly articles |

|2 Review articles |

|3 Book reviews |

|4 Prestige |

|5 Publishing |

|6 New developments |

|7 References |

|8 See also |

|9 External links |

[pic][edit] Scholarly articles

In academia, professional scholars typically make unsolicited submissions of their articles to academic journals. Upon receipt of a submitted article manuscript, the journal editor (or editors) determines whether to reject the submission outright or begin the process of peer review. In the latter case, the submission becomes subject to anonymous peer-review by outside scholars of the editor's choosing. The number of these peer reviewers (or "referees") varies according to each journal's editorial practice — typically, no fewer than two, and usually at least three outside peers review the article. The editor(s) uses the reviewers' opinions in determining whether to publish the article, return it to the author(s) for revision, or to reject it. (This process is discussed in the peer review article). Even accepted articles are subjected to further (sometimes considerable) editing by journal editorial staff before they appear in print. Typically, because the process is lengthy, an accepted article will not be published until months after its initial submission, while publication after a period of several years is not unknown.

The peer-review process is considered critical to establishing a reliable body of research and knowledge. Scholars can be expert only in a limited area of their fields; they rely upon peer-reviewed journals to provide reliable, credible research upon which they can build subsequent, related research.

[edit] Review articles

Review articles, also called "reviews of progress," are checks on the research published in journals. Some journals are devoted entirely to review articles, others contain a few in each issue, but most do not publish review articles. Such reviews often cover the research from the preceding year, some for longer or shorter terms; some are devoted to specific topics, some to general surveys. Some journals are enumerative, listing all significant articles in a given subject, others are selective, including only what they think worthwhile. Yet others are evaluative, judging the state of progress in the subject field. Some journals are published in series, each covering a complete subject field year, or covering specific fields through several years.

Unlike original research articles, book reviews tend to be solicited submissions, sometimes planned years in advance. Book review authors are paid a few hundred dollars for reviews, because of this, the standard definitions of open access do not require review articles to be open access, though many are so. They are typically relied upon by students beginning a study in a given field, or for current awareness of those already in the field.

[edit] Book reviews

Book reviews of scholarly books are checks upon the research books published by scholars; unlike articles, book reviews tend to be solicited. Journals typically have a separate book review editor determining which new books to review and by whom. If an outside scholar accepts the book review editor's request for a book review, he or she generally receives a free copy of the book from the journal in exchange for a timely review. Publishers send books to book review editors in the hope that their books will be reviewed. The length and depth of research book reviews varies much from journal to journal, as does the extent of textbook and trade book review.

[edit] Prestige

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Different types of peer-reviewed research journals

An academic journal's prestige is established over time, and can reflect many factors, some but not all of which are expressible quantitatively. In each academic discipline there are dominant journals that receive the largest number of submissions, and therefore can be selective in choosing their content. Yet, not only the largest journals are of excellent quality. For example, among United States academic historians, the two dominant journals are the American Historical Review and the Journal of American History, but there are dozens of other American peer-reviewed history journals specializing in specific historical periods, themes, or regions, and these may be considered of equally high quality in their specialties.

In the natural sciences and in the "hard" social sciences, impact factor is a convenient proxy, measuring the number of later articles citing articles already published in the journal. There are other, possible quantitative factors, such as the overall number of citations, how quickly articles are cited, and the average "half-life" of articles, i.e. when they are no longer cited. There also is the question of whether or not any quantitative factor can reflect true prestige; natural science journals are categorized and ranked in the Science Citation Index, and social science journals in the Social Science Citation Index.

In the Anglo-American humanities, there is no tradition (as there is in the sciences) of giving impact-factors that could be used — however incorrectly — in establishing a journal's prestige. Perhaps a key reason for this is the relative unimportance of academic journals in these subjects, in contrast with the importance of academic monographs. Very recently, there has been preliminary work done for determining such a measurement's validity.[citation needed]

The categorization journal prestige in some subjects has been attempted, using letters to rank their academic world importance. This journal-ranking is administered by the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.[citation needed]

[edit] Publishing

Humanities and social science academic journals are usually subsidized by universities or professional organizations, and do not exist to make a profit, however, they often accept advertising to pay for production costs. Publishers charge libraries higher subscription prices than are charged to individual subscribers; institutional subscriptions range between several hundred to several thousand dollars. Journal editors tend to have other professional responsibilities, most often as teaching professors. In the case of the very largest journals, there is paid staff assisting in the editing. The production of the journals is most always done by publisher-paid staff. Subject journal publishers often are the university presses:

• Oxford University Press

• Cambridge University Press

• Harvard University Press

• University of California Press.

[edit] New developments

The Internet has revolutionized the production of, and access to, academic journals, with their contents available online via services subscribed to by academic libraries. Individual articles are subject-indexed in databases such as Google Scholar. Some of the smallest, most specialized journals are prepared in-house, by an academic department, and published only online — such form of publication has sometimes been in the blog format.

Currently, there is a movement in higher education encouraging open access, either via self archiving, whereby the author deposits his paper in a repository where it can be searched for and read, or via publishing it in a free open access journal, which does not charge for subscriptions, being either subsidized or financed with author page charges. However, to date, open access has affected science journals more than humanities journals.

[edit] References

• Waller, A.C. Editorial Peer Review Its Strengths and Weaknesses ASIST monograph series. Information Today, 2001. ISBN 1573871001.

• Nisa Bakkalbasi, Kathleen Bauer, Janis Glover and Lei Wang Three options for citation tracking: Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science Biomedical Digital Libraries 2006, 3:7 doi:10.1186/1742-5581-3-7

• Deis et al. "Update on Scopus and Web of Science Charleston Advisor

[edit] See also

• Academic databases and search engines

• List of journals available free online

• List of academic journals

• Open Access

• Scientific journals

[edit] External links

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Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Academic journals

• JournalSeek - A Searchable Database of Online Scholarly Journals

• Links to the world's electronic journals

• Electronic journals available onsite at the British Library

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