Morphology and Anatomy of Articles
We take up several subjects:
- telling primary literature from secondary from tertiary, etc.
- parts of an article and their uses
- strategies for handling primary literature
Primary literature reports the results of research.
Secondary literature summarizes the findings of
and provides pointers to important primary literature; generally has
extensive bibliography.
Tertiary literature summarizes research for non-specialist
audiences.
Quaternary literature includes textbooks and newspapers.
A primary article has [all or most of] the following elements:
- Title (which --in the sciences-- generally tells literally what the
article is about)
- Author(s) (who may have other articles)
- Author institution(s)
- Abstract (should be sufficient to decide whether to keep)
- Introduction (essence of the raison d'etre)
- Literature review (intellectual pedigree --noting what was not
resolved by previous research)
- Statement of problem (what this research is supposed to
accomplish)
- Description of experiment, manipulation, etc. (usually difficult to
read for the non-specialist)
- Findings (often with supporting data: tables, graphs, etc.)
- Summary and conclusions (where it's all supposed to lead)
- Bibliography (all sources cited: a broader form of intellectual
pedigree which can be further analyzed for names and pointers to
important background articles --often including secondary literature)
Finding secondary or REVIEW articles is sometimes a challenge.
The tool of first resort is certainly the online index of Annual
Review of..., but it's important to realize that (a) there are other
'Annual Review'-type compilations and (b) REVIEW articles are
regularly published in many journals. Some databases allow you to search
for 'review' as a document type (BasicBIOSIS does, with the Advanced
search mode and the label dt:; AGRICOLA does not; Cambridge
Scientific Abstracts has a PT=Review [publication type] and DE=reviews), and
some journals are especially good sources of REVIEW-type articles (the
Elsevier "Trends in..." journals, for example). And often the sources
cited in the first few paragraphs of a primary article will
include reference to a REVIEW article.
The criterial earmarks of a secondary or REVIEW article are:
- extensive bibliography
- didactic tone (i.e., not "newsy" or
reporting a single experiment or observation).
Keep in mind that a
REVIEW article is mostly intended to bring researchers up to
speed in an area, and secondarily (but importantly) meant to serve as
an introduction for aspiring students of a research area. REVIEW articles
generally make the assumption that their readers understand the basic
vocabulary of the academic subfield in which they are situated.
And keep in mind that the general databases like
Periodical Abstracts Online use 'review' differently: they generally mean
"book review" rather than "secondary literature".