Also consider the different types of material in terms of credibility as well as availability.
Type |
Primary research? |
Peer-reviewed or edited by professional editors? |
|---|---|---|
Published scholarly journal articleOriginal study |
Yes | Yes |
Published scholarly journal articleReview article |
No | Yes |
Pre- or postprintSee below for more info |
Yes | No |
Conference paper |
Yes | Yes |
Book chapter |
Yes | Yes |
MonographAcademic book on a single, in-depth subject |
Yes | Yes |
Thesis or dissertation |
Yes | No |
Blog or website post |
Can be updates of research but not usually full results | No |
Newspaper article |
Secondary research - discusses primary research | Yes |
Gray literature |
Can be | Yes |
Dataset |
Yes | No |
In the publication process, preprints are the draft text written by the original author(s) as it is submitted to the journal but before going through peer review.
Some fields have long incorporated preprints into the dissemination of research, such as physics and computer science, while others, including the biomedical fields, have only recently begun to do so. Preprint servers make it much easier to share these documents so they will sometimes come up in your search results, moreso in Google Scholar than something like Scopus, which lists them in a separate tab from the published articles.
However, there is a risk when using a preprint in your research as the work has not been peer reviewed, and the preprint server itself might not provide any barrier to publication. The best approach is to locate a published version of record, and if one does not exist, consider that a potential red flag 🚩.
