JLP285: Language, Mind, and Brain

Primary sources in science have to:

• Document original research work. That's called "first disclosure."
• Include enough information for peers to understand and reproduce the work. This helps with the institution of peer review (please see below for a brief video about the peer review process).
• Be indexed in a science journal article database like Web of Science, PsycINFO and Scopus.

Most of the time, we consider peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles to be the model primary sources in science.

“Empirical studies are reports of original research; [… they] consist of distinct sections that reflect the stages in the research process and that appear in the following sequence:” (APA 6th ed., p. 10; APA 7th ed. pp. 4-9, 77-108):

• introduction: statement of the purpose of the paper, and historical background for the research;
• method: description of how the research work was carried out;
• results: what was observed, and how it was analyzed;
• discussion: what are the significance and the interpretation of the findings.

Take a look at this interactive guide to scholarly peer-reviewed articles. It shows all the elements common to empirical studies.

This table can help you to decide whether the article you found is a primary empirical article (scholarly and peer-reviewed) suitable for your literature review in this course:

The following are scholarly peer-reviewed articles that are neither empirical nor primary. These would not be suitable for your literature review:

References:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, (6th ed., 2nd printing). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).   https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Day, RA, and Gastel, B. (2006). How to write and publish a scientific paper. 6th ed. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.

When using databases, make the most of the filters available to you. Each database will have slightly different filters, and not all databases will allow you to filter specifically for empirical studies, but you will often find an option for types of sources. Look for terms like "primary research" or "original research" in addition to "empirical study".

PsycINFO is a great place to start, as they have a filter for empirical studies on their search page.