...and it can get kind of confusing sometimes. Some journals label the different content they provide better than others. Plus when you're looking at a random item you found while searching a database, where you're not seeing it inside the journal it came from, you'll never know if it was in a labeled section that made it clear (in that journal) what it was.
So, yeah...everybody keeps nagging you to get articles reporting on the results of research from 'peer-reviewed' scholarly journals'...but sometimes we forget to mention there's much more in those journals...than just full articles reporting on research.
To make up for that, here's
What You Can Find in Scholarly Research Journals
First and foremost, there are:
- Articles reporting on the results of research that was carried out
- The meat and potatoes; what most students are looking for from these journals. A journal may call these 'Original Research'.
But there can also be:
- Editorials (Written by one of the Journal's senior editors)
- Book Reviews
- 'Corrections' (Researchers reporting mistakes and errata from their originally-published articles)
- Protocols (Step-by-step description of research methods readers can go and do if they so wish)
- Meeting Report (Someone writes about what happened at a research meeting or conference, for those who couldn't go)
- 'Conference Proceedings'' (Journals can include information that was part of a conference, especially if said journal is published by the scholarly or research society that organized the conference - info from a poster, the transcript and/or slides from a presentation, etc.)
- Various ways of discussing research that has already been published - given various names by various journals. Examples:
- Comment
- 'Matters Arising'
- Various ways of discussing recent developments in the research field:
- Review article (Secondary; discussing primary research in the field)
- 'Perspectives' (In one top journal, described as "a forum for authors to discuss evidence-based opinions, models, and ideas. They are more forward-looking and/or speculative than Review articles and may take a narrower field of view")
- Ways for researchers to let their fellow researchers know about promising work they're doing, BEFORE they are ready to get a complete article published. (They can get feedback, and also 'lay claim' to their progress to avoid being 'scooped' by someone else doing similar work.)
