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Biology Journal Club (Rago)

This research guide will help you find resources for your Microbiology Journal Club course.

Anatomy of a Scholarly Article: Interactive Tutorial

Use the interactive tutorial below from NCSU Libraries to familiarize yourself with the parts of a research article.  Click on the image below to begin.

             

Source: NCSU Libraries Interactive Tutorial

Original Research vs. Review

Original research articles are based on an experiment or study. The authors will report the purpose of the study, the research methodology, and results. This is a familiar structure for original research articles > IMRAD: introduction, methods, results, and discussion.

Review articles summarize or synthesize content from earlier published research and are useful for surveying the literature on a specific research area. Review articles can lead you to original research articles.

Source: UC Merced - How to Read a Scholarly Article

Primary vs Secondary Sources in Science

Primary Sources

  • Written by scientists who perform the experiments
  • These articles include original research data and a methods section explaining how experiments were done
  • Examples: journal articles, theses, conferences, (governmental) reports, patents

Secondary Sources

  • Summarize or compare lots of research in a particular area (e.g., a review)
  • In a review article, graphs, tables, or figures containing actual data will contain citations in the figure legend to the primary research papers that originally reported the findings
  • Examples: review journals, literature/article reviews, data compilations