Scholarly Journals

               Scholarly Journals:

What are They and Why Should I Care?

The Scholarly Journals tutorial uses a  

database called PsycARTICLES, which has

recently blocked Frames from its site. 

Unfortunately the software used for this

tutorial is based on Frames. You can still

work through the entire tutorial and print 

the Certificate of Completion. The database 

page and the instruction page just don't

stay together. Hopefully, this is a temporary

issue!

 If you lose the database screen, it will be

behind the instruction page.

Has your professor specified that you

must use an article from a Scholarly Journal

in your research? Just what is a Scholarly

Journal and how do you find these articles?

This tutorial will explain what they are and

how you can find them. The further you get

in your college career the more you will be

required to use scholarly resources for your

research. Scroll down the page and click

the forward arrow to advance.

Most professors assume students are

prepared to do this research when they

enter college. Unfortunately, this is not

always true. "Statistics show that only

37% of incoming college students are

prepared for college English Classes."

That's why it's so important for students

to learn how to use the library databases.

Hopefully, these labs will give you a head

start about how to search and use many

of the 180+ databases available to all

Collin students, faculty and staff.

The database we are going to use for this

tutorial is called PsycARTICLES. It is a

good database to use for any of the bulleted

topics listed below. 

• Applied psychology
• Communication systems
• Developmental psychology
• Educational psychology
• Experimental human and animal psychology
• Personality
• Psychological and physical disorders
• Physiological psychology and neuroscience
• Professional personnel and issues
• Psychometrics and statistics
• Social psychology
• Social processes and issues
• Sports psychology and leisure
• Treatment and prevention

 Double click on any of the images

to enlarge them.

You'll also hear Scholarly Articles referred

to as Peer Reviewed or Refereed. They

 are basically all the same thing. There

are minor differences but for our purposes

just consider them to be the same. For this

tutorial we are going to refer to them as

Peer Reviewed. Articles published in a Peer

Reviewed Journal must go through a

rigorous review process.

 Way more articles are rejected by the

editors and never even make it to the

review process. On average, 21% are

immediately rejected.

Between 2009 and 2013 the

journal Nature received 53,631

manuscripts, but only published 4,139.

That's a 7% acceptance rate!

This is what a Call for Manuscripts looks 

like. It's important for authors to read

the requirements of the call and to follow

each one specifically. Failure to do this will

usually result in immediate rejection.

A not so funny cartoon about the peer

review process! It's being compared to

running a gauntlet. Running a gauntlet

is a form of corporal punishment used

in ancient times, where the accused is

forced to run between two rows of

soldiers who strike out and

attack them. If the accused person

makes it through to the end, they are

judged innocent.

The time period for an article to be

reviewed varies but it is rarely a short

process! Also, authors are prohibited

from submitting the article to more

than one journal at a time.

If an article is accepted, the authors

receive no money. Their reward is in

the prestige of having their articles

accepted and published! Most articles

submitted for review are written

by a number of authors.

 One of the duties of the editors of Peer

Reviewed Journals is to find these other

scholars and persuade them to be

reviewers for submitted articles. Remember,

no one gets paid for this process except

the editor!

The blue period is the Request for applications

(usually 2-3 months). The red is the

submission time, no more papers are accepted

and the review process begins (around 13

weeks). The yellow is the Post Peer Review

where 1st and 2nd round letters of declination

are sent out.

These are examples of the covers of

Peer Reviewed Journals. Note the lack of 

colorful photographs! These journals are

sold as subscriptions to libraries and

businesses. Collin College pays hundreds

of thousands of dollars for students to

have access to the most current and

reliable information as well as Peer Reviewed

Journal articles.

Here are some examples of the covers of

Popular Magazines. Magazines make money

through advertising and are sold in grocery

stores, drug stores and airports - as well

as through subscriptions. They are filled

with photos of beautiful people and usually

contain advertising on nearly every page!

Some basic differences in a Peer Reviewed

Journal and a Popular Magazine. Remember

to double click on the chart to enlarge it!

Some databases, like JSTOR, only contain

scholarly material. Strangely enough, according

to the Oxford English Dictionary  (in our list

of databases under the letter O) "it was not

until 1967 that peer reviewing began in the

United States."

Many of our other databases have check boxes

for users to specify the options they desire. Look

at the database on the right side of the page.

Notice it has a Full Text and a Peer

Reviewed check box on the opening page.

Using quotation marks around a phrase or

proper name, tells the database to only

retrieve articles containing those two terms

together. Without the quotation marks it

will retrieve any article with either term

in it. These little tricks can help make

your searching much more successful.

This particular database has a number

of ways to narrow down your search

results.

We are going to search the old fashioned way

but I want to show you a screenshot of the

selections you have when you do an Advanced

Search. Be sure to double click on the image

so you can clearly see all the options.

Okay, now it's time to do some searching

on our own. Please type in "peer review",

click both the full text and Peer Reviewed

boxes.

 Look for an article titled, Improving

the peer-review process for grant

applications: Reliability, validity, bias, 

and generalizability.

This particular database sorts articles

according to the relevance to your search

terms. We can change this option by

clicking under Sorted by: at the top left

of the page. Depending on your computer's

resolution you may need to minimize your

screen to see the Sorted by: option. Click the

center box to do this if you don't see the

Sorted by:.

Let's try, most recent first.

Notice the database is searching all the way

back to 1974. Let's narrow the time frame

to 2010 - 2019 - Move the date slider to

the right until it shows 2010 - 2019. If we

choose 2020 - on, we only get only a few

articles.

 There are a number of other options

to narrow our results. Under Methodology,

lets choose an Empirical Study, which means

data was collected, and is based on direct

observation or experience. 

We can also choose specific age ranges for

our results. Let's choose Young Adulthood

(18-29 years). Now we only have 126 articles,

which is still too many. Under Subject, click

the More arrow. From the next page just check

the box to include college students. Leave all

other boxes unchecked. Click Apply.

Finally, we have just a few articles from which

to choose. Notice the databases is still

remembering our search terms. All these

articles contain the words peer review. There

are so many other options available in this

database but I think it's time

to wrap this up. There's one more thing I want

you to be aware of. Click the title of the first

article. Notice there is an Abstract, which gives

you a brief description about the article. Click

the Cite link at the top right of the page. Make

sure you select the MLA 8th Edition Well, that

citation is certainly not in the correct MLA

format! You have enough information to do

your Works Cited on your own.

Notice this article has a DOI number at the

end. It's a digital Object Identifier.

DOI:10.1037/stl0000162.

The DOI number should be included at the end

of your citation in the MLA 8th Edition Style.

You can also copy and paste the DOI number

into Google and bring up the article - probably

just the abstract, but it's an interesting thing

to know about.

 So, now you know more than you probably 

ever wanted to know about scholarly journals!

Hopefully, this tutorial will take away some of

the  mystery about scholarly sources and

give you the knowledge about how to find 

scholarly sources and the confidence to feel

comfortable using them in your research. Don't

forget to print out the Certificate of Completion 

at the end if you are viewing this tutorial for 

English lab credit. Happy searching!

Certificate

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