Chemistry and Biochemistry: A Guide to McFarlin Library Resources: Articles

Scholarly journal articles are a vital secondary source of information for serious researchers. Articles are much shorter than books and focus in-depth on very specific topics.  Published by academic presses or associations and written by scholars and professionals in chemistry and/or biochemistry, they provide detailed information on the most current research and developments in the field. The journal Biochemistry, for example, is published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), a major scientific society and one of the largest publishers of chemistry-related academic journals in the world.

You will often hear scholarly journals described as being "peer reviewed".  This means that when an author submits their article to a journal for publication it is first referred to a committee of experts in that field.  (These experts would be the author's professional equals or peers, hence the term.) This committee carefully reads and studies the article, making sure that the research was properly done.  If they find possible errors in the article, it may be referred back to the author for further work and revision.  Only when the peer-review committee is satisfied that the article meets the journal's standards of scholarship will it be published.  If properly done, peer reviewed articles provide you with the most authoritative information available on your research topic.