In this lesson, we'll look at the characteristics of journal articles and how we can use them at university. Journal articles can be difficult to read and understand, especially when you're entering a new field. It may help you to remember this as you begin to read them so that you can focus on getting an overview of the main points instead of trying to understand every single word. Knowing what to expect in a typical article can help as well. So let's have a look at journal articles in more detail. Scholarly journals are subject-specific academic periodicals, which means they are published several times a year. In these journals, current research is presented in the form of articles. Journal articles can be of any length, although they are usually between 2,000 and 7,000 words long. These articles are written by academics for other academics. Journal articles could take other work or present new research for consideration by others. Articles published in these journals undergo a peer review process before being published. This means that other academics are asked to check the information and give feedback anonymously. Because of this process, journal articles are considered to be one of the most authoritative and credible sources of information in your chosen field. They are one part of a much larger conversation and form part of the web of knowledge that academics create. We can become part of that conversation by taking a critical reading approach to academic sources and by being selective about how and what we read. So let's start by having a look at what a journal article is. Generally speaking, there are two main types of journal articles, scientific or technical articles and humanities articles. We'll start off by looking at what is the same about the two types of journal articles. All journal articles have five things that are the same. They always include details about the journal, including the date of publication, the volume, and the issue number. They always have a title. They always list the author or authors. And they have an introduction and conclusion. And they typically list all of the references at the end. Most articles also include an abstract, which is a short summary of the article including the results or main ideas presented, and this will help you to decide if the article is relevant for your purposes. So now we'll have a look at a scientific journal article. Scientific articles will have a method or methodology section following the introduction. This explains the way in which the research was conducted and often also the reasons for choosing this method. Following this, there is the results section, which explains the results of the experiment or test. Data is usually described in fine detail, equations are solved, and any figures or graphs are included. Lastly, there is a discussion section which analyzes the results in terms of current theories or the hypothesis presented in the introduction. While results discuss the finer points of the data, the discussion looks at the data as a whole in comparison with the other studies. The discussion section will also usually suggest conclusions about the significance of the experiment. This section may also examine the limitations of research and suggest areas for further research, although this is sometimes included in the conclusion. These sections can change slightly depending on the author. Sometimes, the results and discussion sections are mixed or the discussion and conclusion are merged. Articles from the humanities, on the other hand, are much more essay-like in structure, however the layout is similar, though they are more often single-column than the double-column favored by scientific journals. As you can see, the journal details, title, author, abstract, introduction, and conclusion, and references are all still here. The difference is that the body of the work is, as mentioned, much more essay-like. The introduction will generally be slightly longer and may cover previous research on the topic. Topic sentences will guide you through the reading, and the conclusion will summarize the main points and indicate if any further analysis or research needs to be done. In this lesson, we have looked at the characteristics of journal articles in order to help you access the information you need more efficiently. Having an idea of the way that journal articles fit into and contribute to the academic culture can help you use them to participate in academic conversations.
