Document types
A research article in a scientific journal is the most common way to publish new research. Also, conference proceedings, organisational series and books are channels for scientific information.
Articles
A scholarly journal contains articles (also known as papers). There two main types: original and review articles.
Along with these two, journals can contain various other types of articles: research notes, discussion articles, commentaries, letters, editorials, book reviews etc.
Original articles (Research articles/papers)
Original article contains brand new research results or findings or ideas reported by researchers themselves.
It is usually rather short, an average 7 to 10 pages long presentation of some precisely outlined problem. Reading just original articles it is difficult to get a holistic understanding of wider topics and knowledge of certain branch of science.
Review articles
Review articles summarise previous research of a specific topic or a problem. Review is done by experts and they read through all the relevant original articles and other publications. Review articles are usually rather long, even dozens of pages, and they have extensive reference list.
Review articles can be published in both usual scholarly journals, or in specific review series. Annual reviews is one of the most famous review series available.
Books
A book or a monograph is usually written, when knowledge about a topic is generally accumulated and established. It takes time to write a whole book, and also certain stability is expected from contents of a book.
A book presents the background of the phenomenon and provides an overall view of the topic.
Edited books
An edited book refers to a book that is compiled from separate articles by multiple authors. The editor can also be the author of some of the articles, but this is not necessary.
Series
Publication series are a common way for research institutes and other public organizations to publish their research or examination results, making them important sources of information.
For example, dissertations in Finland are almost exclusively published in university series. A series publication can be a single book or an edited book.
A series is published under a specific name and in recurring parts, like a magazine. Series and magazines are collectively known as periodicals. However, the parts of a series do not necessarily appear as regularly as magazine issues. A part of the series is published when the publication is ready. The number of parts per year can also vary. Usually, different parts have their own themes or topics.
The most “scientific” new results are nowadays preferably published as articles in peer-reviewed journals, but series publications still convey a lot of report, survey, and case-type research information. A series publication is often not peer-reviewed but is still a useful source.
Nowadays, most series publications are published online-only formats, which has made them harder to find in library databases. Series are better found in the online publication systems of various organisations, or they can be searched with normal search engines, like Google.
Conference proceedings
New research findings are quite often presented at scientific conferences. The presentations or their summaries, as well as possibly posters, are usually compiled into a conference publication. This is aimed to be done with minimal delay, often even before the conference begins.
The publications of international conferences are often recognizable by the word ‘proceedings’ in their title.
To do:
- Notice, that scientific information has their own established publication channels.
Next page: Scientific publications in different branches of science.