Scientific literature
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This article talks about the general structure of the production and use of scientific literature. For information on particular types, see the article for the type. For information about journal article adatabases, and abstract and indexing services in the science, see Academic databases and search engines.
Scientific literature comprises scientific publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences, and within a scientific field is often abbreviated as the literature. Academic publishing is the process of placing the results of one's research into the literature.
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[edit] Types of scientific publications
Scientific literature can include the following kinds of publications:
- scientific articles published in scientific journals
- patents specialized for science and technology (for example, biological patents and chemical patents)
- books wholly written by one or a small number of co-authors
- books, where each chapter is the responsibility of a different author or set of authors, though the editor may take some responsibility for ensuring consistency of style and content
- presentations at academic conferences, especially those organized by learned societies
- government reports
- scientific publications on the World Wide Web
- books, technical reports, pamphlets, and working papers issued by individual researchers or research organisations on their own initiative; these are sometimes organised into a series
The significance of these different components of the literature varies between disciplines and has changed over time. As of 2006, peer-reviewed journal articles remain the predominant publication type, and have the highest prestige. However, journals vary enormously in their prestige and importance, and the value of a published article depends on the journal. The significance of books, also called research monographs depends on the subject. Generally books published by university presses are usually considered more prestigious than those published by commercial presses. The status of working papers and conference proceedings depends on the discipline; they are typically more important in the applied sciences. The value of publication as a preprint or scientific report on the web has in the past been low, but in some subjects, such as mathematics or high energy physics, it is now an accepted alternative. For further information about these formats, see the corresponding article.
[edit] Role in science
Scientific literature is where scientific debates are properly carried out and adjudicated.[1]
[edit] Preparation of an article
The actual day-to-day records of scientific information are kept in research notebooks or logbooks. These are usually kept indefinitely as the basic evidence of the work, and are often kept in duplicate, signed, notarized, and archived. The purpose is to preserve the evidence for scientific priority, and in particular for priority for obtaining [patent]s. They have also been used in scientific disputes. Since the availability of computers, the notebooks in some data-intensive fields have been kept as database records, and appropriate software is commercially available. [citation needed]
The work on a project is typically published as one or more technical reports, or articles. In some fields both are used, with preliminary reports, working papers, or [[preprint]s followed by a formal article. Articles are usually prepared at the end of a project, or at the end of components of a particularly large one.
[edit] Authorship
[edit] The nature of the content
A scientific article has a standardized structure, which varies only slightly in different subjects.
The first part is normally an abstract; this is a one-paragraphy summary of the work, and is intended to serve as a a guide for determining if the articles is pertinent, and to furnish subject metadata for indexing services.
[edit] The quality of content
Ultimately, it is not the format that is important, but what lies behind it - the content. However, several key formatting requirements need to be met before an outlet can be regarded as forming a part of the literature.
- The format should be archival, in the sense that libraries should be able to store and catalogue the documents and scientists years later should be able to recover any document in order to study and assess it, and there should be an established way of citing the document so that formal reference can be made to them in future scientific publication. The lack of an established archival system is one of the hurdles that World Wide Web based scientific publication has had to overcome. Reliable repositories such as arXiv or PubMed Central have been institued, and progress is now being made on their interoperability and permanence.
- The content should be presented in the context of previous scientific investigations, by citation of relevant documents in the existing literature.
- Empirical techniques, and the results of the investigation, should be described in such a way that a subsequent scientist, with appropriate knowledge of and experience in the relevant field, should be able to repeat the observations and know whether he or she has obtained the same result. This naturally varies between subjects, and obviously does not apply to mathematics and related subjects.
- The conclusions drawn should be based on previous literature and/or new empirical results, in such a way that any reader with knowledge of the field can follow the argument and confirm that the conclusions are sound. That is, acceptance of the conclusions must not depend on personal authority, rhetorical skill, or faith.
[edit] Peer review
Peer review and the learned journal format are each convenient ways of ensuring that the above fundamental criteria are met, rather than being in themselves essential to scientific literature.
The purpose of peer review is quality control, a term which also encompasses other means towards the same purpose. The "quality" being referred to is the scientific quality, the lack of flaws in the data, and the validity of the conclusions drawn from the data. The lack of peer review is what makes most technical reports and World Wide Web publications unacceptable as contributions to the literature. The relatively weak peer review often applied to books and chapters in edited books means that their status is doubtful, unless an author's personal standing is so high that his or her prior career provides an effective guarantee of quality. Formal peer review is in flux and likely to change fundamentally owing to the emergence of institutional digital repositories where scholars can post their work as it is submitted to a print-based journal. Though this does not prevent peer review, it permits an unreviewed copy into general circulation.
Increasing reliance on abstracting services, especially on those available electronically, means that the effective criterion for whether a publication format forms part of the literature is whether it is covered by these services; in particular, by the specialised service for the discipline concerned such as Chemical Abstracts Service, and by the major interdisciplinary services such as those marketed by the Institute for Scientific Information.
