Introduction to U.S. History: Academic Journal Articles

An academic article or a scholarly article is a piece of literature written on an academic topic by an expert in the field. It has been put through an extensive vetting process, called peer-review, in order to be published in a major academic journal. This process, in which other experts read, critique, and suggest changes to a piece of research, ensures that anything published in the academic journal contains good research, appropriate research methods, and is a topic of interest to other researchers.

Academic journal articles acquaint researchers with the scholarly conversation about a particular topic. They help researchers understand what other experts have argued, what supports those arguments, and how new research is affecting the conversation between scholars.