Understanding Scientific Journals and Articles | Process of Science | Quiz

Which of the following pieces of writing would be considered primary literature?

a textbook written by physicist

a newspaper article written by a biologist

laboratory notes written by a physicist

A scientific journal article written by a biologist
How do scientists indicate that they are building on past work in their scientific journal articles?

by citing as many references as possible

by describing past work and how their results fit in

by using established methods to conduct their research

by separating the raw data from their interpretation
Why do scientific journal articles include abstracts at the beginning?

to provide a concise summary of the work

so the abstract can be included in search databases

so the importance of the work can be quickly assessed

All of these answers are correct.
In which section of a scientific article are you MOST LIKELY to find a graph?

Abstract

Introduction

Materials and Methods

Results
What is the purpose of publishing research in a scientific journal and not a popular magazine?

Scientific journals have many more readers than magazines.

Only other scientists are interested in reading about research.

Journals review articles more rigorously and tend to be focused on one specialty.

Research must be shown to be correct before the wider population can read it.
Scientific articles follow a specific structure because

it creates an archive that we reference.

it makes finding information easier.

it helps other scientists reproduce the research.

All of the above.
Scientists often begin their research by reading articles published by others on the same or a similar topic. This is because the articles

give us a research project to retry.

provide information that we can use in our own project.

tell us the proven facts about our subject.

show us what has been done and what to avoid researching.