Reading a scientific paper is similar to eating a bear.
Say what?
Just stick with me for a minute.
How do you eat a bear? One bite at a time, of course!
I’m sure many of you have heard that joke or saying but, it holds very true here.
Reading scientific papers is a big undertaking.
The only way to get good at it is to just start. And definitely don’t try to eat the whole thing at once.
Even better, you want to have a plan.
In our last article, we gave you 5 practical steps to get you started with reading scientific papers.
One of the first steps was to identify which type of paper you are reading.
I don’t mean this to be a curveball for you. In fact, gaining this understanding will help you to refine the focus of your research to find the most relevant articles possible.
Once you know about the different types of papers you can specifically search for the type(s) that will best meet your goals.
Today we are going to walk you through the different types, tell you how to identify them and why you might want to use each one.
Let’s get started.
The main types of scientific literature
Before diving into each type of scientific paper I thought it would be good to give a general overview, a lay of the land so to speak.
It is important that we orient ourselves to the world of published scientific literature before delving deeper.
Generally speaking there are three main types of scientific literature that you may come in contact with and thus should be aware of.
They are known as primary, secondary and tertiary scientific literature.
Primary scientific literature is that which is derived directly from research conducted by an individual scientist or group of scientists.
This literature is primarily published in scientific journals and follows a relatively strict format with sections including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion.
As well, all of these papers go through a formal peer review process prior to publication.
The next type is secondary and this is where primary data is summarized and synthesized. These include review articles and even books.
Tertiary literature is derived from primary and secondary literature sources. The target audience is more general and usually without specific scientific training.
These publications feature more simplified or distilled language are found in magazines, newsletter, newspapers, and more.
When I refer to the types of scientific papers I’m specifically referring to those within primary and secondary scientific literature.
So, what are the different types of scientific papers then?
We’ll cover that next.
Types of scientific papers
Not to make this any more complicated than it already is but I have to tell you that there are ten (10) types of scientific papers.
What are the chances that you will encounter all of them, you might ask?
Probably not highly likely but I want you to be prepared nonetheless.
The types of papers include the following:
- Original article
- Case report
- Technical note
- Pictorial essay
- Review
- Commentary
- Editorial
- Letter to the editor
- Others
- Non-scientific material
In the subsequent sections I will unpack each type of paper so you know exactly what to expect.
Let’s now explore the individual types one by one.
Original article
These papers are the most important type and you may likely encounter them the most when doing searches.
It is in these papers that original, primary data is presented and in many cases these are novel findings.
As a general rule the conclusions in such a paper should be clearly supported by the data and the methods should be valid in terms of generating such data.
These papers also have a strict format of specific sections. In a future article, I will break down what each of these is and how to approach reading them.
Case report
The next article type is case report and as the title suggests these comprise the analysis of a single case study.
Generally, these are short and focused papers with a limited number of figures and references.
Technical article
This article is where a specific technique or procedure is described.
These are relatively short and limited with respect to figures and the discussion.
Pictorial essay
A pictorial essay is all about the images due to the fact that they are primarily used for teaching.
The information while current and practical typically does not involve the introduction of new information.
Review
Review articles are highly detailed analyses of specific topics and recent developments therein.
There is no new information or primary data being presented in these papers.
As well, these should not include the personal opinions of the author(s).
Generally, these papers contain a large amount of information that is being synthesized and as such require a sizable list of references.
Many reviews are actually invited by the editor of the journal.
Commentary
These articles are short and contain the author’s personal experience with respect to a specific topic.
A lot of the time the topic tends to be controversial and serves to allow the author to present what they believe is a new perspective.
The topics are usually hot and highly relevant, however there is no new data or information being presented.
You will also notice a limited number of figures and references in these articles as well.
Similarly to review articles, commentaries are also very commonly invited by the journal editors.
Editorial
Editorials can take multiple forms but are generally a type of short review or critique of an original article.
They will draw attention to a recent innovation or topic that may be of particular interest to the journal’s readers.
Again, these types of articles are driven by request of an editor and are even written by the editor in some cases.
Letter to the editor
These articles are a type of short correspondence to the editor to share a comment or concern about previously-published articles.
In many cases the comments are objective and constructive but they can get a little testy at times too.
The author(s) of the previously-published article that is being commented on are typically invited to respond. This is known as an Author’s Reply to Letter.
Others
There are a number of other article types that you may encounter but they are generally specific to the individual journal and what their goals are.
The nature and topics of these articles are entirely dependent on the mission of the journal.
For example, medical journals may have certain types of articles that a strictly science journal would not.
Non-scientific material
Occasionally journals will include material or articles that are not of a scientific nature but add to the character of a journal.
These could be book reviews, highlights from a meeting or conference, obituaries or tributes, speeches and more.
Tying it all together
Being aware of the different types of papers will help you to focus on what is most relevant and informative to what you are looking for.
I tend to focus a lot on primary or original research papers but, I hope you have seen here that there is a lot of different information to be obtained from each of the types of articles.
Knowing which information each type contains will be key to guiding your search and can save you a lot of time.
The more focused you are in your search, the more likely you are to come up with highly relevant results and keep you from wasting time on articles that are not very helpful.
Next time you do a search, pay attention to the different article types that come up or even try searching for specific types.
And keep an eye on the SD blog because we will be continuing this series on reading scientific papers in the coming weeks.
Taking Action
One of the most important aspects of Science Defined is building a community so that we can learn from and help each other. Fostering open discussion is an integral aspect of that.
Each blog post will end with an inspiring prompt to get you started. Submit a comment below to join the conversation.
Today’s prompt(s):
- What different types of scientific articles have you read?
- Which have you found most informative or relevant to your search?
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