Guide to Library Research in Science

Lesson 2: Scientific Communication

Importance of the Scientific Journals

Scientific journals are usually considered the most important primary sources of information. A scholarly scientific journal contains a collection of articles, usually published on a regular schedule, written by scholars reporting the results of experimental investigations. The intended audience for scholarly journal articles is other experts in the field. Articles conform to a specific structure, dictated by the discipline and the particular journal, and may include article title, author(s), author affiliation, introduction, method, results, analysis, discussion, and a bibliography of literature cited. They may also include data tables, graphs, charts, detailed drawings, and photographs. Research articles submitted to scholarly journals for publication undergo an evaluative process known as peer review. (See below)

Scholarly scientific journals serve three major functions in the process of scientific communication:

The social role of scientific journals is to establish and maintain intellectual property, so that the creative work of a scientist receives the recognition of peers.*

The archival role is to provide a “statement of knowledge that has been evaluated and declared acceptable by the scientist’s peers.”** All articles submitted for publication in a refereed, scholarly journal are subjected to a peer review process by experts in the author’s area of research to determine whether the work is accurate, reliable, and worthy of publication. The peer review process serves to maintain the quality of the scientific literature by sorting out the good science from the bad before publication.  As a result of this monitoring, scientists can be more confident in building their research on the work of others as reported in the literature.

Finally, journals serve as a vehicle for the rapid dissemination of information, which is essential because of the cumulative nature of science. Unfortunately, the archival function of the journal (the peer review process) actually impedes the rapid dissemination of current research information by delaying publication. The availability of electronic communication facilitates the sharing of information through informal channels, outside the peer-review process. The advent of electronic publication of peer-reviewed journals has the potential of speeding up dissemination of scholarly publications.

*Derek J. DeSolla Price, Little Science, Big Science--and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 62.

**Diana Crane, “Information Needs and Uses,” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, v.6 (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica), 23.