Academic journals


 * In relation to the natural sciences, see Scientific journal

An academic journal is a regularly-published, peer-reviewed publication that publishes scholarship relating to an academic discipline. The purpose of such a journal is to provide a place for the introduction and scrutiny of new research, as well as a forum for the critique of existing research. These two purposes are most often manifested in the publication of original articles and book reviews.

The term "academic journal" applies to scholarly publications in all fields, but scientific journals vary somewhat in form and function from journals in the humanities and qualitative social sciences.

Scholarly Articles
In American academia, submissions are generally unsolicited. Professional scholars generally submit an article to a journal, and the editor (or editors) determines whether to reject the submission outright. If the editor chooses to consider the article for publication, it is then subject to anonymous peer-review by other scholars of the editor's choosing. The opinions of these outside reviewers are used in the determination to publish the article, to return it to the author for revision, or to reject the article. Even accepted articles are subject to further (and sometimes considerable) editing by the journal before publication. From the submission of an article to its publication is usually a process of several months.

The process of peer review is considered critical to establishing a reliable body of research and knowledge. Scholars can only be expert in a limited area; they rely upon peer-reviewed journals to provide reliable and credible research which they can build upon for subsequent or related research. As a result, significant scandal ensues when an author is found to have falsified the research included in an article, as many other scholars, and more generally the field of study itself, has relied upon that research.

Book Reviews
Book reviews serve as a check on the research published by scholars in manuscript form. Unlike articles, book reviews tend to be solicited. Journals typically have a separate book review editor who determines which new books should be reviewed and by whom. If an outside scholar accepts the book review editor's request to review a book, he or she generally receives a free copy of that book from the journal in exchange for a timely review. Publishers send books to book review editors in the hope that their books will be reviewed. The length and depth of reviews vary considerably from journal to journal.

Prestige
The prestige of an academic journal is established over time. There are dominant journals in each academic discipline that receive the largest number of submissions and therefore can be most selective in choosing their content. Among academic historians in the United States, for example, the two dominant journals are the American Historical Review and the Journal of American History, but there are dozens of other American peer-reviewed journals of history that specialize in specific time-periods, themes, or regions.

In the American humanities, there is as yet no tradition (as currently exists in the sciences) of giving numerical prestige "values" to journals in schemes to quantify the relative importance of research (based on the number of references made to an article in other academic articles).

Financial Operation
Academic journals in the humanities and social sciences are usually subsidized by universities or professional organizations, and do not exist to make a profit. However, they often accept advertisements as a way of off-setting production costs. It is standard practice for academic journals to charge libraries much higher subscription rates than individual subscribers pay. Editors of smaller journals tend to have other professional responsibilities, most often as teaching professors.

New Developments
In recent years, the Internet has revolutionized the production of, and access to, academic journals. Journal content is often available online via services subscribed to by academic libraries. Individual articles are indexed in databases by subject.