Several articles posted online are hard to differentiate when trying to determine what type of literature they are. For starters, there are three types of general categories for articles: Primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary articles are commonly known as “peer-reviewed” articles, as they go through a certain process before being published online. An example of a peer reviewed article would be an article where the author explains an experiment that they have done. Secondary literature is commonly found in the form of a review like a textbook or a body of work reviewing several articles with a common interest. Tertiary literature would be bodies of work that can not be used as a source, but they are great ways to get background knowledge on the topic in question. An example would be a blog post and newspapers
Looking at this peer reviewed journal on seawater pH in ecosystems in California, it can be seen that the author follows certain guidelines. Having a materials and methods section is essential as it allows readers to be able to replicate the body of work. It also shows that some experimentation was done. The results section follows showing us the original data obtained.
Many papers online claim to be reviews in the title, for example “Taking action against ocean acidification: a review of management and policy options”. Evidently, the title suggests that it is a review prior to reading the paper itself. Looking at this article, it can be seen that there is a centralized idea being presented, using several papers to reinforce the idea. There are no original material and methods section showing the work of the author as they have only cultivated papers on the subject.
This article on ocean acidification gives solid background information on the topic but lacks the experimental work to be considered credible, to be used in subsequent papers. They present videos and pictures to help support their idea but do not refer to previous papers on the topic to back up their body of work
It can be tough to differentiate the three sometimes, mainly primary and secondary articles, hopefully using these few tricks as rules of thumb, it can become easier to identify them.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 