LibGuides: CMNS 137: Characteristics of Scholarly Communication

Characteristics of Scholarly Communications

Authority : Is the information authored by experts with credentials and / or scholarly or professional affiliations? Look for author information such as advanced degrees and university affiliation, past and current positions in industry, government, etc.

Publication : How is the information published? A magazine is slick and glossy with many advertisements. Magazine articles are just a few pages. Typically the article lacks citation information, little or no author information is provided. Peer-reviewed journals are not slick and they have few advertisements. The articles tend to be long with tables, graphs, and data and all sources used in preparing the article are fully cited. The article will have several sections such as literature review, methodology, results and conclusions. Does the article have a bibliography, end notes or footnotes? Almost all scholarly publications (e.g. books and articles) will have citations. Is there an editorial board and instructions on how to submit articles?

Source : Is the information from peer-reviewed journals, books, theses/dissertations, statistical information and data sets, etc.?

Scientific Literature: Primary and Secondary | Research and Review

Scientific Literature Cycle
Types of Journal Literature

Scientific information : Primary – Secondary Literature

Scientific information evolves through a continuous process of communication among scientists. It develops in cycles moving from ideas, through research that tests the ideas, to publications reporting the results, first in the primary literature and later in the secondary and, if significant enough, in the tertiary literature.

Year 1	IDEA	Identification of a problem or issue with a need to research and recommend solutions. Formation of a hypothesis.
Year 1	RESEARCH	Search of the literature to see what has been done before (Literature Review) and testing of the hypothesis in the lab or field.
Years 1-3	INVISIBLE COLLEGE	Informal discussion of research with colleagues via email, discussion lists, at meetings, seminars, etc.
	GREY LITERATURE	More formal record of research published as preprint or technical report, a personal or institutional or research agency website, or given as a conference paper for which proceedings are not published. These publications are part of the primary literature, since they are an original record of research, but are called "grey" because they are harder to locate than the readily available primary literature below. Examples: British Columbia. Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. Ecosystems Section. (2017, November 20). Workshop report: Conserving Okanagan wetlands: Local government and provincial tools. Okanagan Basin Water Board - Annual Meeting, forums & Workshops and Projects pages on OBWB website. University of British Columbia. Faculty of Applied Science. (2019). The Water Planning Lab at the School of Community and Regional Planning: Research Green, Jemma. (2018). Evaluating the conservation potential of urban and rural ecosystems for aquatic-breeding amphibians: A case study of two native frogs in southwestern British Columbia. (Master of Science thesis) Victoria, BC: University of Victoria.
	PRIMARY LITERATURE	Detailed record of research formally published as an article *in a journal or a paper* in the published proceedings of a conference.** Some may appear as brief reports of research in progress, with whole journals or a section of a journal devoted to this format. Unlike brief reports and papers delivered at conferences, the longer research articles in scholarly journals are peer-reviewed prior to publication lending them the most authority. Look for abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, references as key features of an original / primary research article. Examples of scholarly journals: Hydrobiologia, Journal of Environmental Management Example of Primary Research Article: Hassall, C., & Anderson, S. (2015). Stormwater ponds can contain comparable biodiversity to unmanaged wetlands in urban areas. Hydrobiologia, 745(1), 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2100-5
Years 3-5	SECONDARY LITERATURE	Publications summarizing and pointing to the primary literature soon after it appears. Their main purpose is to facilitate timely access to scientific information, most readily through article databases. Review articles published in peer-reviewed journals or appearing in annual volumes devoted exclusively to reviews. A review is a digest of recent research in a particular subject area and, are an invaluable resource for background information. Add “review” as a keyword when searching article databases or search engines. Example: Wang, M., Zhang, D., Dong, J., & Tan, S. K. (2018). Application of constructed wetlands for treating agricultural runoff and agro-industrial wastewater: A review. Hydrobiologia, 805(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-017-3315-z Scientific Magazines & Newspapers published for a broader and more popular audience; not peer-reviewed; contain research of others rather than the original reports. Examples: New Scientist, Scientific American Scholarly Books that review current literature (can be edited collections of essays/reports) Example: Ecology of freshwater and estuarine wetlands edited by Darold P. Batzer and Rebecca R. Sharitz. University of California Press. Kelowna Circulating Collection. QH 541.5 .M3 E266 2014
Years 5-10	TERTIARY LITERATURE	Publications that also summarize and point to the primary literature, but generally only after it has become widely accepted and believed, such as handbooks, encyclopedias, textbooks, and popular literature-- all good sources for background information. Example: Access Engineering eBooks database- Handbook of Applied Hydrology

Types of Scientific Scholarly Articles:

You will encounter many types of articles and it is important to distinguish between these different categories of scholarly literature.

PRIMARY RESEARCH ARTICLE:

A primary research article describes an original research study that aims to gain new knowledge on a topic through direct or indirect observation and research and reports on results. These include quantitative or qualitative data and analysis. In science, a primary article will often include the following sections: Abstract; Introduction, Methods/Materials, Results, and Discussion (often called IMRD) plus References.

Peer-reviewed research papers are published in scholarly journals/periodicals and directed toward a scientific audience. Often in journal sections headed Research Articles. Examples: Hydrobiologia, Journal of Environmental Management

They may be accompanied in such journals by Research Reports, Research Letters which are not peer-reviewed.

REVIEW ARTICLE:

In the scientific literature, this type of article provides a synthesis of existing research on a particular topic.

Secondary Articles will summarize & interpret primary research. They may be termed as Literature Reviews because they will look at many primary articles and give an overview of the primary literature on a topic. These are useful when you want to get an idea of a body of research that you are not yet familiar with, and are a good sources for citations of primary articles

They do NOT contain an experiment, study, or research. If you are unsure, read the abstract (summary) of the article. Often the abstract will contain the word review or summary as a clue. Some reviews may include an introduction and methodology section to explain the nature of the review activity

Appear in peer-reviewed journals. Specific journals publish mainly review articles, such as Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, and Trends in Ecology and Evolution

PEER-REVIEWED:

Refers to articles that have undergone a rigorous review process by peers/experts in their discipline, often including revisions to the original manuscript, before publication in a scholarly journal. Primary research articles in reputable science & engineering journals are always peer-reviewed. Reviews are often peer-reviewed as well.