Environmental Sciences 105

An article is defined as a piece of writing shorter than a book, appearing in a newspaper, magazine, periodical, journal, or anthology.  To be scholarly, an article must be based on research and include documentation of all sources.

• articles present the most recent published literature on any topic
• articles are published in periodicals

What is a peer-reviewed article?

Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in their journal.

Source: BioMedCentral. (n/a). Peer review process. https://www.biomedcentral.com/getpublished/peer-review-process

Peer-review process for publication in a journal:

Source: Scientific Forefront Journal. (n/a). Publication process. http://www.scientificforefront.org/publicationprocess.php

Once you identify a great article, look for the following

• An abstract at the beginning of the article -- summary of the researchers/authors argument, approach and conclusion
• Author(s) -- scholarly articles usually have two or more authors -- author credentials and affiliations are listed on first page or last page of article
• Specialized Headings/Sections in the article -- include:
  • Introduction -- One to several paragraphs describing the subject content of the article. Sometimes this section is called Background. This section usually includes the literature review of previous studies related to the same topic.
  • Methodology --  This section will provide information about what data was collected and who participated in the study.
  • Results -- This section will provide information about the results of the study.
  • Discussion - The purpose of the discussion is to interpret and describe the significance of research study and provide any new insights from the research.
  • Conclusion -- this section will provide the findings of the research and any recommendations and limitations of the study.
  • References or bibliography -- an extensive list of references used in the research of the article is provided at the end of the article.

Note: The structure and format of peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts (articles) are changing. You might find peer-reviewed articles without a separate literature review and conclusion sections. These sections will be part of the introduction and discussion sections. 

From the University of Minnesota Libraries

How to Read a Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Article

1. Read the abstract

An abstract is a summary of the article, and will give you an idea of what the article is about and how it will be written. If there are lots of complicated subject-specific words in the abstract, the article will be just as hard to read.

2. Read the discussion / conclusion - Many articles do not include a section header for conclusion - Go to discussion 

This is where the author will repeat all of their ideas and their findings. Some authors even use this section to compare their study to others. By reading this, you will notice a few things you missed, and will get another overview of the content.

3. The rest of the article

Now that you have gathered the idea of the article through the abstract, conclusion, introduction, and topic sentences, you can read the rest of the article!

To review: Abstract → Conclusion (and Discussion) → Entire Article

Review the two articles and answer the following questions: 

• Which article is peer-reviewed? 
• Name five differences between the two articles in terms of characteristics. 
  • Be specific with your answers
• When could you use this type of popular article?
• Is the quality of information presented in the popular article comparable to that in a peer-reviewed article?
• So, what is the purpose of peer-reviewed articles?  Who should use peer-reviewed articles and when?

Click the link below to complete the activity