Environmental Horticulture

What type of article are you looking for or looking at?

These categories are not rigid and some of them overlap.  Here are some characteristics to help identify the article type:

Research articles:

• typically published in a journal
• highly likely to have been peer-reviewed
• They are structured like lab reports, with sections for:  the abstract or summary of the project, introduction and literature review, hypothesis or experimental question, method or procedure used, results and data gathered,  the analysis or interpretation of the data, and conclusions.
• Their purpose is to serve as the primary (first) report of research, and they are used by practitioners as a theoretical base for their applications. Research articles contain highly technical language for an experienced or educated audience.
• Not every article in a peer-reviewed journal is peer-reviewed.  Many academic or research journals also include editorials, comments, conference summaries, and reviews that may not be peer-reviewed.

Peer reviewed (or Refereed):

• usually (but not always) research articles
• frequently, but not always, identified by a string of acceptance dates. Passage of time between submission of the draft and final acceptance suggests that the author’s peers reviewed the article for sense and value of the contribution, and submitted suggestions to make the article stronger. 
• peer review is typically conducted anonymously by scholars external to the author's institution.  In "double blind peer review" the authors names are also concealed from reviewers.

Review articles:

• summarize published literature about a topic, providing historical context for current research
• may identify trends, replication of results, and hypotheses that need further research and testing

Conference papers:

• may present "works in progress" 
• In some cases the paper may be peer-reviewed, and sometimes only the abstract is peer-reviewed.  Conference papers might be published in conference proceedings, or the authors may wait to publish the complete version of the article in a peer-reviewed journal.

Technical reports: (not peer reviewed)

• are structured like case studies: or "how I solved this problem."
• They serve as a project report to the funding source, which may be a federal, state, or local government agency.  Tech reports are not always available; they may be kept proprietary, especially if client is a non-governmental corporation.

Trade publication articles: (not peer reviewed)

•  frequently published in magazines or journals
•  written for practitioners
• They are structured informally, and they may contain lots of advertising and short news items providing up-to-date information about products, meetings and research.  Articles are brief and usually do not have references at the end.

Popular articles: (not peer reviewed)

• published in magazines and and other news sources intended for non-specialist audiences
• typically do not contain original research results

Websites, press releases, encyclopedia entries:

• use with caution, and evaluate for authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, and coverage

When evaluating a resource, whether it is print or internet-based, there are questions you can ask yourself to determine if it is high quality and a good match for your project or paper. These questions fall into the following 5 categories:

• Authority
  Who created the resource? Are the author, organization, affiliations, and publisher clearly shown? If the page is web-based does it link to information about the organization? Does the author have credintials or expertise in the subject matter? Is the resource from a government agency, university, company, non-profit organization?

• Accuracy
  Is the information contained in the source properly cited? Is there a bibliography or reference list? Can you verify the information in other sources? Is the information free of grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors? Is the statistical data clearly explained? Are charts and graphs properly represented and cited?

• Objectivity
  Is the resource free of advertizing? Or, if there is advertizing, is it clearly seperate from content? Is there any bias? Is the sponsoring organization bias or motivated to report facts from a particular perspective?

• Currency
  When was the resource created? When was it updated/ revised? Is it kept current? When was the information gathered?

• Coverage
  Is the information complete? Does it cover the subject in depth? Does it match your information needs?

  These criteria were adapted from a worksheet used by Harvard University's Widener Science Library.