"Science journal" redirects here. For the journal "Science", see Science (journal). For the defunct "Science Journal", see New Scientist.
Cover of the first issue of Nature (4 November 1869)
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication with the purpose of furthering the progress of science by disseminating new research findings to the scientific community.[1] Such journals serve as a platform for researchers, scholars, and scientists to share their latest discoveries, insights, and methodologies across a multitude of scientific disciplines.
Unlike the situation in professional or trade magazines, the articles are mostly written by scientists rather than staff writers employed by the journal. Scientific journals are characterized by their rigorous peer-review process, which aims to ensure the validity, reliability, and quality as well as supporting the integrity (through reproducibility and replicability) of the published content.[1][2] In peer review, submitted articles are reviewed by active scientists (peers) to ensure scientific rigor. With origins in the 17th century, the publication of scientific journals has evolved substantially, advancing scientific knowledge, fostering academic discourse, and facilitating collaboration within the scientific community.[3][4]
There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, with scopes ranging from the general sciences, to highly specialized fields.[2][3] These journals publish a variety of articles including original research, reviews, and perspectives, each serving distinct purposes in academia. The advent of electronic publishing has made scientific journals more accessible.
Content
Scientific journals
As of 2012[update], there are 28,100 scientific journals being actively published,[5] and many more that were published at in the past (see list of scientific journals). Most journals are highly specialized, although some of the oldest journals such as Science and Nature publish articles and scientific papers across a wide range of scientific fields.[6]
Scientific journals are superficially similar to professional magazines or trade journals. These are some of the more salient characteristics of the former:
authors of scientific journal articles are mostly written by active scientists including doctoral students, researchers, and professors.
scientific journal articles must pass the process of peer review, in an attempt to ensure that articles meet the journal's quality and scientific validity standards.[1]
scientific journal articles often (but not always) present original research
intended audience is others in the field, so content is more advanced than what is found in non-journal publications.[7]
In contrast, trade journals and professional magazines
are targeted toward readers in mostly non-scientific or non-research fields
primarily have content related to the workplace, and include tips and advice for improving performance, but are not scholarly.[2]
can be read in a more casual manner, and don't requires as much concentration.
There are several types of content in scientific journals; the exact terminology and definitions vary by field and specific journal, but often include:
Letters (also called communications, not to be confused with letters to the editor) are short descriptions of important current research findings that are usually fast-tracked for immediate publication because they are considered urgent.
Research notes are short descriptions of current research findings that are considered less urgent or important than Letters.
Articles are original research, usually between five and 20 pages in length and are complete descriptions of current original research findings;[8] length varies, e.g. 80-page articles are rare in mathematics or theoretical computer science.
Supplemental sections contain tabular data that is the result of current research and may be dozens or hundreds of pages with mostly numerical data. Some journals now only publish this data electronically on the Internet. Supplemental information also contains other voluminous material not appropriate for the main body of the article, like descriptions of routine procedures, derivations of equations, source code, non-essential data, spectra or other such miscellaneous information.
A target article in a journal is one which argues a case, to which other authors submit a commentary or a response. There may be a final response from the author of the target article.[9] See, for example, Alison Gopnik's article How we know our minds: The illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, (1993), which was one of a pair of "target articles" to which other responses were published in the same volume.[10]
Review articles do not cover original research but rather accumulate the results of many different articles on a particular topic into a coherent narrative about the state of the art in that field.[8] They provide journal references to the original research. Reviews may be entirely narrative, or may provide quantitative summary estimates resulting from the application of meta-analytical methods.
Perspective articles give researchers' views on research that their peers performed.[8]
Data papers are articles dedicated to describe datasets. This type of article is becoming more common and journals exclusively dedicated to them have been established, e.g. Scientific Data and Earth System Science Data.
Video papers are a recent addition to scientific publications. They most often combine an online video demonstration of a new technique or protocol with a rigorous textual description.[11][12]
Editorial or Op-Ed are included in some scientific journals such as Science and typically are a news section where scientific developments and their relationship to social or political issues are described. These are written by science journalists or the journal editor. There may also be a section for letters to the editor. They are not generally regarded as scientific journal articles.
Reading an article in a scientific journal usually entails first reading the title, to see if it is related to the desired topic. If it is, the next step is to read the abstract (or summary or conclusion, if the abstract is missing), to determine if the article is worth reading.[14]
Publishing research results is an essential part of helping science to advance.[15] If scientists are describing experiments or calculations, they should also explain how they did them so that an independent researcher could repeat the experiment or calculation to verify the results, or so that they could evaluate whatever the research article's findings were.[16] Each journal article becomes part of the permanent scientific record.[17]
Articles in scientific journals can be used in research and higher education. An essential part of a scientific article is citation of earlier work. The impact of articles and journals is often assessed by counting citations (citation impact). In a scientific research group or academic department it is usual for the content of current scientific journals to be discussed in journal clubs. Public funding bodies often require research results to be published in scientific journals. Academic credentials for promotion into academic ranks are established in large part by the number and impact of scientific articles published.
The authors of scientific articles are not journalists; typically, a graduate student or a researcher writes a paper with a professor. As such, the authors are unpaid and receive no compensation from the journal. However, their funding bodies may require them to publish in scientific journals. Active academic researchers are expected to publish their work in scientific journals. This is important for a researcher's career, because their qualifications and performance are often evaluated based on publication count (number of articles accepted to scientific journals) and publication impact (how important the journal is and how often the article is cited). This is one of the main criteria for candidates for tenured positions.
In the early 17th century, scientists wrote letters to each other, and included scientific ideas with them. By the mid-17th century, scientists began to hold meetings to share their ideas. Eventually, this led to founding organizations, such as the Royal Society (1660) and the French Academy of Sciences (1666).[3] In 1665, the French Journal des sçavans and the English Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society began systematically publishing research results. Over a thousand periodicals, some ephemeral, were founded in the 18th century, and the number has increased since then.[4]
Peer review did not begin until the 1970s, and was seen as a way of enabling researchers who were not as well-known to have their papers published in journals that were more prestigious. Though it was originally done by mailing copies of papers to reviewers, it is often done online now.[18]
The paper is submitted to the journal office, where the editor considers the paper for suitability, potential scientific impact, and novelty. Articles tend to be highly technical, representing the latest theoretical research and experimental results in the field of science covered by the journal. Usually, rigorous rules of scientific writing are enforced by the editors; however, these rules may vary from journal to journal, especially between journals from different publishers.
If the journal's editor considers the paper appropriate, it is submitted for scholarly peer review. The paper is sent for approval to two or three reviewers for evaluation before it can be deemed ready for publication. Reviewers are expected to check the paper for soundness of its scientific argument, including whether the author(s) are sufficiently acquainted with recent relevant research that bears on their study, whether the data was collected or considered appropriately, and whether the data discussed supports the conclusion offered and the implications suggested. Novelty is key: existing work must be appropriately considered and referenced, and new results improving on the state of the art presented. Reviewers are usually unpaid and not a part of the journal staff—instead, they should be "peers", i.e. researchers in the same field as the paper in question. Both authors and reviewers are typically scientists employed and paid by universities, research institutes or corporations, or working on a research grant.
Standards and impact
The standards that a journal uses to determine publication can vary widely. Some journals, such as Nature, Science, PNAS, and Physical Review Letters, seek to publish articles that mark a fundamental breakthrough in their respective fields.[citation needed] In many fields, a formal or informal hierarchy of scientific journals exists; the most prestigious journal in a field tends to be the most selective in terms of the articles it will publish, and usually will also have the highest impact factor. In some countries, journal rankings are used for funding decisions[19] and even evaluation of individual researchers.[20]
Reproducibility and replicability
For scientific journals, reproducibility and replicability of results are core concepts that allow other scientists to check and reproduce the results under the same or similar conditions described in the paper or carry out under changed conditions of measurement and explain the difference in results. While reproducibility is expected, verification of reproducibility by a third party is not generally required for publication.[21] The reproducibility of results presented in an article is therefore judged implicitly by the quality of the procedures reported and agreement with the data provided. (Some journals in the field of chemistry such as Inorganic Syntheses and Organic Syntheses require independent reproduction of the results presented as part of the review process.)
The inability of independent researchers to reproduce published results is widespread, with 70% of researchers reporting failure to reproduce another scientist's results, including more than half who report failing to reproduce their own experiments.[22] Sources of irreproducibility vary, including publication of falsified or misrepresented data and poor detailing of procedures.[23]
Electronic publishing in the context of the scientific journal is the presentation of scholarly scientific results in only an electronic (non-paper) form. This is from its first write-up, or creation, to its publication or dissemination.[24]
Many journals are electronically available in formats readable on screen via web browsers, as well as in portable document format PDF, suitable for printing or storing on a local desktop or laptop computer. New tools such as JATS and Utopia Documents provide a 'bridge' to the 'web-versions' in that they connect the content in PDF versions directly to the World Wide Web via hyperlinks that are created 'on-the-fly'. The PDF version of an article is usually seen as the version of record, but the matter is subject to some debate.[25]
Electronic counterparts of established print journals promote and deliver rapid dissemination of peer-reviewed and edited, "published" articles. Peer review, copyediting, page makeup, and other steps in the process support rapid dissemination.[26]
Other benefits of electronically published scientific journals are easy availability of supplementary materials (data, graphics and video), lower cost, and availability to more people, especially scientists from non-developed countries. Hence, research results from more developed nations are becoming more accessible to scientists from non-developed countries.[24]
By 2006, almost all scientific journals have, while retaining their peer-review process, established electronic versions; a number have moved entirely to electronic publication. Many journals now publish the final papers in their electronic version as soon as they are ready, without waiting for the assembly of a complete issue, as is necessary with paper. In many fields in which even greater speed is wanted, the role of the journal at disseminating the latest research has largely been replaced by preprint servers such as arXiv.org. Almost all such articles are eventually published in traditional journals, which still provide an important role in quality control, archiving, and establishing scientific credit.
Traditional scientific journals require a paid subscription to access published articles.[27] Many scientists and librarians have long protested these costs, especially as they see these payments going to large for-profit publishing houses.[28]
To allow their researchers online access to journals, many universities purchase site licenses, permitting access from anywhere in the university, and, with appropriate authorization, by university-affiliated users at home or elsewhere. These may be much more expensive than the cost for a print subscription. Despite the transition to electronic publishing, the costs of site licenses continue to rise relative to universities' budgets. This is known as the serials crisis.[29]
Publications by scholarly societies, also known as not-for-profit-publishers, usually cost less than commercial publishers, but their subscription costs are still usually several thousand dollars a year. In general, this money is used to fund the activities of the scientific societies that run such journals, or is invested in providing further scholarly resources for scientists; thus, the money remains in and benefits the scientific sphere.
Concerns about cost and open access have led to the creation of free-access journals such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS) family and partly open or reduced-cost journals such as the Journal of High Energy Physics. However, professional editors still have to be paid, and PLoS still relies heavily on donations from foundations to cover the majority of its operating costs; smaller journals do not often have access to such resources.[citation needed] Many open access journals may charge authors a fee for review or publication, rather than charging readers a fee for access.[28]
Based on statistical arguments, it has been shown that electronic publishing online provides wider dissemination and increase the average number of citations an article receives.[30]
Copyright
Traditionally, the author of an article was required to transfer the copyright to the journal publisher. Publishers claimed this was necessary in order to protect authors' rights, and to coordinate permissions for reprints or other use. However, many authors, especially those active in the open access movement, found this unsatisfactory,[31] and have used their influence to effect a gradual move towards a license to publish instead. Under such a system, the publisher has permission to edit, print, and distribute the article commercially, but the authors retain the other rights.
Even if they retain the copyright to an article, most journals allow certain rights to their authors. These rights usually include the ability to reuse parts of the paper in the author's future work, and allow the author to distribute a limited number of copies. In the print format, such copies are called reprints; in the electronic format, they are called postprints. Some publishers, for example the American Physical Society, also grant the author the right to post and update the article on the author's or employer's website and on free e-print servers, to grant permission to others to use or reuse figures, and even to reprint the article as long as no fee is charged.[32] The rise of open access journals, in which the author retains the copyright but must pay a publication charge, such as the Public Library of Science family of journals, is another recent response to copyright concerns.[33]
↑ "Major Parts of a Research Article"(PDF). Marymount University Library & Learning Services. January 25, 2023. Archived(PDF) from the original on April 18, 2015. Retrieved January 25, 2023.
A.J. Meadows, ed. The Scientific Journal. London: Aslib, c1979. ISBN0-85142-118-0
R.E. Abel et al. "Scholarly Publishing: Books Journals, Publishers, and Libraries in the Twentieth Century". N.Y.: Wiley, 2002. ISBN0-471-21929-0
D.W. King et al. "Scientific Journals in the United States: their Production, Use, and Economics". Stroudsberg, PA: Hutchinson-Ross, 1981 ISBN0-87933-380-4
Darnton, Robert, "The Dream of a Universal Library" (review of Peter Baldwin, Athena Unbound: Why and How Scholarly Knowledge Should Be Free for All, MIT Press, 2023, 405 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXX, no. 20 (21 December 2023), pp. 73–74. Reviewer Darnton writes: "Baldwin warns: journal publishers are gouging their customers, scholarly monographs reach a tiny audience, libraries are floundering under budget pressures, academics are pursuing careers rather than truth, and readers are not getting all the information they deserve." (p. 74.) "Most scientific research is subsidized by the federal government." Under a 2022 White House directive, "As of December 31, 2025, all agencies... must require immediate open access... The G7 leaders took a similar stand on May 14, 2023, as did the European Council on May 23. The tide is turning in favor of unrestricted access, but the countervailing forces are so complex that the future remains cloudy." (p. 73.)
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