The term periodicals covers a broad category of items published on a recurring basis. Periodicals include:
Newspapers usually come out every day and report short stories on current events that are usually written for a general audience.
Magazines are periodicals that include short stories, news, in-depth reporting, and other types of articles directed towards a general audience. Most people can read a magazine article and understand it. In academia, we often refer to magazines as popular literature.
Journals are generally for an academic audience. The articles are written by researchers in a particular field for other researchers in that field. Usually, journals will include editorials, literature reviews, and primary research articles. Often times you may need to have a background in, or a degree to understand the primary research articles in a journal.
If you need to, go back and review some of the videos on the Scholarly vs. Popular page under the How Information is Organized tab
The Journal List allows you to discover the journals to which the Library has access. This is especially helpful when you have a citation and want to find the actual article.
For example, given the following citation:
Wood, P. J. (2011). Understanding and evaluating historical sources in nursing history research. Nursing Praxis in New Zealand, 27(1), 25-33.
Whereas books provide a broad overview of a topic, scholarly journal articles cover a very narrow aspect of the same topic. For example, if you searched on the nature of higher education in the United States, you might find:
a book titled: http://dominican.worldcat.org/title/american-higher-education-transformed-1940-2005-documenting-the-national-discourse/oclc/84903405&referer=brief_results
AND
a journal article titled:
The book discusses the natural history of the planet spanning 4.5 billion years but the journal article is discussing only Manganese deposits over the history of their existence. The book is broad, the article is very narrow, in scope.
Research is constantly updated, so researchers keep up-to-date on the most recent research in their field by reading journals specific to their interests. For instance, in the sciences, research changes very rapidly; new discoveries are made and theories are disproved all the time. Research in the sciences can often be considered "old" after just a couple of years.
Writing a book can take several years, whereas a journal might be published every month or even every week. Books can't keep up with the fast pace of change like a journal.
When searching through an academic journal, looking for a primary research article, you may come across several types of articles:
Editorials are opinion pieces.The author is expressing his opinion on a topic within his field of expertise. The article is usually written so that one does not need to be an expert on the topic, but they probably have some background. Editorials are usually short (2 -3 pages at most) and may have a handful of citations, or the author may not be citing anyone at all.
Literature reviews are longer than editorials and thoroughly discuss a topic. The author is citing other people's research, although they are not doing any original research on their own part.
Primary research articles discuss the author's research in-depth. The author will present, a literature review, how they did their research, the data that they've collected, what it all means, and all of the citations of other people's past work on the topic.
Common elements of a primary research article are:
Not all of these will appear in every research article, and it may vary between disciplines (science, humanities, business, etc.) and the type of research being done.
|
Primary Research |
Literature Review |
Editorial |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Author |
Expert (affiliation, experience, degrees, etc.) |
Expert (affiliation, experience, degrees, etc.) |
Expert (affiliation, experience, degrees, etc.) |
|
Audience |
Professionals in the discipline; other experts. |
General audience in the discipline. |
General audience in the discipline |
|
Evidence |
Author does his/her own research; lists citations/ references. Look for methodology, data, discussion of results, lit review, etc. |
Author does a large literature review; uses others original research. lists citations/references |
Author addresses concerns of discipline about a topic or article |
|
Purpose |
To inform and disseminate research |
To fill a knowledge need in the discipline |
To discuss an area or concern in the discipline |