What is a scientific article?

A scientific article presents research results and is written by researchers and aimed at an academic readership. The article must have been reviewed by experts within the same subject area before publication.

Scientific articles can be divided into different types:

Original articles where the author presents empirical studies and for the first time describes the results of research work.

Review articles are critical reviews of previously published studies.

Theoretical articles aim at developing new theories from existing research.

Scientific articles can be structured in different ways according to subject, method and the type of article. A scientific original article usually consists of the following elements:

• Abstract – a short summary of the article
• Introduction – background information, aim and problem statements
• Methodology – so that the reader can follow and repeat the research process
• Result - presentation of the research results
• Discussion – interpretation and evaluation of the results. Conclusions and relation to previous research
• References - all documents that the author has referred to must be listed here

Peer review

A scientific journal has a council of referees consisting of experienced researchers within the journal’s field. These experts review the submitted articles and assess their quality, both scientifically and according to content. They decide if the article is to be published directly, should be amended or refused. This process is known as peer review and the aim is to ensure scientific quality.

Check that a journal has been peer reviewed

In the database Ulrichsweb you can search for a journal to see if it contains peer reviewed articles. Scientifically reviewed journals have the symbol Refereed in the database. Remember that the information peer reviewed or refereed refers to the journal and does not guarantee that all articles in the journal are scientific.

Searching for scientific articles

Several databases contain both scientific and popular journals. Sometimes it is possible to limit your search criteria to only scientific journals (Peer reviewed).