What do academic journal articles do?

Academic journal articles are reports about an expert's original research, analysis, or review of available research on a topic. These specialized reports are published in journals, which are publications aimed at professionals and academics.

Academic journals

provide good-quality research articles. In general, articles contained in academic journals have been peer reviewed.

This means that experts in the field have reviewed the article and decided if it is suitable for publication or if it requires further refinement. This ensures that only the best quality articles are published. These megajurnals complement specialized journals by providing online platforms for research and accept a wide range of articles and topics.

Online journals

have reduced production and delivery costs, although the cost of managing quality control (peer review) and management of the editorial office) remains constant.

Magazine publishers deserve recognition for experimenting and investing extensively in digitization and delivery platforms before there was a market for electronic journals. Limit your results to peer-reviewed articles from the last five years, unless you need to research for historical purposes. An example of an index from the same academic journal that lists the articles that appear in this issue. Read the summary of a magazine article to help you decide if it's an article you'd like to continue reading. Here's a link to a tutorial developed by the North Carolina State University libraries that shows what parts make up a journal article, such as the title, author, abstract, introduction, publication information, charts and graphics, conclusion, and references.

Because they are professional sources of information, journal articles are not the best resources for obtaining basic or background information. Journals offer different niches for communicating research, from “own” publications, which include more information about society than original research articles, to large high-level journals that only include original research, and everything in between.