What are Scholarly Journal Articles?: Some Definitions

- WHAT ARE SCHOLARLY JOURNALS? -

Scholarly journals are publications that focus exclusively on publishing the research in a particular academic field or discipline.  Scholars and researchers depend on them to keep current with advances in their area of expertise and for publishing their own research.  University students depend on them for resources to use in their studies.

While magazines, newspapers, etc., apply certain standards and criteria when selecting articles to publish, a scholarly journal will use a far more rigorous system called "peer review" to help ensure the accuracy and relevance of the articles it publishes.

Scholarly journals are also known as:

• Peer reviewed publications
• Juried publications
• Refereed publications

All of these terms mean the same thing--scholarly journals.

Scholarly journal articles are also known as:

• original research
• primary research
• original article
• research article

All of these terms mean the same thing--scholarly journal articles.

- WHAT DOES "PEER REVIEW" MEAN? -

When an author submits an article to a scholarly journal, a group of reviewers who are the author's peers--scholars or researchers in the same field or discipline as the author--determine if the article is suitable for publishing.  The reviewers may reject an article or require revisions before allowing it to be published in the scholarly journal.

Peer review helps to ensure higher quality information in scholarly journal articles but it is not perfect, so published articles are sometimes retracted.