Scientific literature

Scientific literature comprises academic papers that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within a field of research, relevant papers are often referred to as "the literature". Academic publishing is the process of contributing the results of one's research into the literature, which often requires a peer-review process. Original scientific research published for the first time in scientific journals is called the primary literature. Patents and technical reports, for minor research results and engineering and design work (including computer software), can also be considered primary literature. Secondary sources include review articles (which summarize the findings of published studies to highlight advances and new lines of research) and books (for large projects or broad arguments, including compilations of articles). Tertiary sources might include encyclopedias and similar works intended for broad public consumption. Scientific literature can include the following kinds of publications: Scientific articles published in scientific journals Patents in the relevant subject (for example, biological patents and chemical patents) Books wholly written by one author or a few co-authors Edited volumes, where each chapter is the responsibility of a different author or group of authors, while the editor is responsible for determining the scope of the project, keeping the work on schedule, and ensuring consistency of style and content presentations at academic conferences, especially those organized by learned societies Government reports such as a forensic investigation conducted by a government agency such as the NTSB Scientific publications on the World Wide Web (although e.g. scientific journals are now commonly published on the web) Books, technical reports, pamphlets, and working papers issued by individual researchers or research organizations on their own initiative; these are sometimes organized into a series.