Understanding the Literature
Types of Scientific Articles
News Articles
- Provide a brief overview of scientific findings for a general audience
- Useful when you are searching for the latest scientific research
Meeting Abstracts, Papers, and Proceedings
- Provide brief descriptions of original research presented at conferences
- Useful when you are looking for recent research in the scientific literature
Research Articles
- Present new and original scientific findings
- Explain research methodology and provide data
- Useful when you need primary sources (primary articles will be discussed in detail later)
Review Articles
- Provide an overview of a field or subject
- Synthesize previous research
- Useful when you need background information and additional references
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Literature
Primary literature contains the original research results reported by scientists. It includes conference proceedings, dissertations, journal articles, and patents. Before research results are published in a scientific journal, they must pass a rigorous review process by other scientists called peer review.
After a research article is published, the information contained in the article may be summarized and analyzed in books and review articles by other authors. These types of sources are considered the secondary literature of the sciences because, rather than presenting new research, they provide a compilation or evaluation of previously published research.
Tertiary literature is further removed from the original research than secondary literature. It attempts to give an overview of a topic. Information in tertiary materials comes from the secondary and primary literature and is generally widely accepted. Encyclopedias, handbooks, and textbooks are some examples of tertiary literature.
Peer Reviewed vs. Popular/News Articles
Peer Reviewed Articles |
Popular/News sArticles |
Are written by scholars and researchers (look for a university or laboratory affiliation in the article) |
Are written by journalists or writers who may or may not have any expertise in the article's topic |
Include an abstract and a bibliography or a cited list of references |
Rarely have an abstract or a bibliography |
Have a specialized format (this will be discussed later under "Reading & Citing") |
Do not follow a specialized format |
Use discipline-specific language |
Use language understandable by the general public |
Undergo a rigorous peer review |
Undergo a limited editorial review |
To learn more about differen types of sources, visit the Scholarly Articles versus Popular Articles Tutorial. Also see Cornell University Library's Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from Other Periodicals
