What is the difference between an academic journal and a journal article?

An article is a non-fiction piece of writing that forms an independent part of a publication, such as a magazine. A magazine is a collection of articles and is published periodically throughout the year. For brief instructions on academic and peer-reviewed journals, see Scholarly vs. Quick video tutorial of peer-reviewed journals. An academic publication is considered academic if it is written by experts, for experts.

The publication has an academic focus, since it reports on original research (experimentation), research methodology or theory. Academic journals are generally aimed at professional or academic researchers and provide detailed analyses that focus on a single discipline or academic field. The publisher is usually a professional association or an academic press. Not all academic journals use a peer review process.

On the contrary, Journal is a periodical publication in a specific field of study, which is often reviewed by experts in the area in question. Journal publications are considered to be one of the most recognized forms of publication, due to their high standards of review and publication. Journal articles can be used for research purposes, as they are reliable, up-to-date, topic-specific, and comprehensible. This is because they don't document their sources of information and usually lack the depth of academic journals.

They include only peer-reviewed journals and therefore have no checkboxes to be limited to this type of content. A magazine is always about a specific discipline, aimed at a specific group of people, usually students studying that discipline and not the general public. It should be noted that journals are usually peer reviewed (refereed) and, therefore, undergo an extensive editorial process. Journals aren't necessarily of poor quality or low quality (nor are journals necessarily of high quality); they're simply not designed to support most higher-level academic research.

Peer-reviewed journals publish articles only if they have gone through the official editorial process. However, NavigatorSearch (formerly Roadrunner) and EBSCOhost do not distinguish between academic and reviewed journal articles in pairs in their results.