Click on each hyperlinked word for links to more information
Manuscript: A formal research report that is submitted to the editor of a journal for peer-review. The word manuscript is used for both empirical/primary or reviews before submission to a journal.
Pre-Print: Is a public version of a manuscript that is available online on pre-print repositories for public viewing and commenting. It is important to pay attention and be aware that manuscripts uploaded on pre-print servers have not passed through the process of peer-review. Depending on the discipline and the faculty member that you are working with you will probably be using different approaches when reading and using content from pre-print repsitiories. When in doubt, ask for more clarity.
Peer Review: The process of submitting a manuscript to a journal for review by experts in the field. In most Scientific disciplines, peer review is considered an important rite of passage to have one's research accepted by the larger scientific community.
Peer Reviewed article: A manuscript that has gone through either single (authors don't know who the reviewer are) or double blind (neither authors nor the reviewers are aware of each other's identities) review by usually three to eight experts in the field and has been accepted as good quality work. This can either be a primary/empirical paper or a review paper.
Empirical Research article or Primary Research Article: An article in which the authors generated data and an article that has gone through the process of peer review.
Review Article: A review article is usually a synthesis of scholarship from several primary research articles. A review article doesn't always follow the usually pattern of sections that we see in primary research articles. Some review articles pull out quantitative or qualitative data from across several primary research papers and present a meta analysis. So, it can be easy to mistake them for a primary research paper. Just remember to question whether the data were directly generated by authors of an article Vs collected from an existing paper. When its the latter, you are reading a review paper. Also, review papers have also been through the process of peer review.
Conference proceeding: In certain disciplines like Computer Science, Mathematics, some sub disciplines of Cognitive Science, Physics, etc. conference proceeding are peer reviewed by conference committees and are considered equal to the process of peer review by a journal. This can be confusing since in other disciplines conference proceeding are not used or cited in scholarly wiring. When in doubt ask your professor for clarity.
Dissertations and theses: Dissertations and theses are reviewed by committee members of the authors and while they are useful in research, most Science scholars will recommend using the peer-reviewed papers published from these documents rather than citing the document itself. Again, there are disciplinary differences and when in doubt, reach out to your professor for clarity.
Citation Index: A searchable repository of citations that usually includes the abstracts of research articles.
Journal metrics:
Journal Impact Factor/Impact Factor: The impact factor is a measure of the frequency in which the average article in a journal is cited in a particular year. Impact factors measure the impact of the journal, not the impact of individual articles.
Eigenfactor: A value used to rank the likelihood that a journal will be used, or how important it is(a kind of popularity index). This metric is not popular any more and has been replaced by others.
Author metrics:
H-index: The H-index is a measure of scientific productivity. It can apply both to an individual or a journal. It's commonly used for individuals.
Article metrics:
Citation number: The number of times an article has been cited in another published work. The citation number is calculated using different algorithms depending on who is generating the data. Remember current work many have low citation numbers depending on how recently the article was published.
It is important to look deeper than just the metrics defined above when thinking about the value or contribution of a scientist or a lab. There are on-going debates about the biases that publication metrics bring into promotion pathways, funding priorities, etc. Here are a few articles that talk about different perspectives to be aware of while thinking about scholarly metrics.