Journal reading

Journals usually refer to periodicals/publications usually of an academic nature. Its readership is usually restricted to members of the profession or related fields. However with the increase in internet use and emergence of free access journals, the general public too now have access to and do read these scholarly publications.

• The publishers of journals range from commercial book publishers-like the one publishing you text books to those published by learned societies.
• Journals range from subscription only (you must pay to buy a copy) to those freely available online.
• Some are "peer reviewed" and others are not.
• You can also start your own journal!

Work flow for journal publication:

1. Scientist/ doctors do research and write up their findings
2. Write up sent to editor of journal
3. Editor sends your write up for peer review (this is review by other researcher/experts in the field you are writing about).
4. Editor either accepts or rejects your paper. Sometimes they ask you to make modifications and resubmit.
5. You get letter of acceptance and your research work gets published.
6. If your research gets rejected to might want to send it to another journal and the process starts all over again.

A word of caution when journal reading:

• Not everything published in a journal should be accepted as "fact"-even if is published in a very reputed journal
• Errors, misinterpretation and falsification of data are well known occurrences.
• "Peer review" is NOT a form of guarantee / quality control measure.
• Quite often research is done by postgraduate students who are supervised-the extent of supervision is of course not known !
• Many of those engaged in medical research are not doctors!