The purpose of this assignment is to 1) define primary and review articles; 2) identify primary and review articles; and 3) describe the peer review process. 

Primary articles and review articles are distinctly different types of scientific or scholarly articles that serve different purposes in contributing to scientific findings on a particular topic. A primary article is usually an original, scientific article or report in which the writer(s) lead studies and reports findings in research they have conducted themselves.  The content within a primary article is usually original research data that has not been previously seen in other scientific studies.  The usual sections found within a primary article include Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References. In addition, primary articles are normally found in peer-reviewed journals.

On the contrary, a review article is in short, a summary of already existing data and studies on a particular topic. Review articles, unlike primary articles do not present new data with supporting new studies that the authors conduct themselves. Review articles are less time-consuming than primary articles because the authors synthesize existing knowledge to further examine previously published data. Review articles can provide a ‘big-picture’ analysis. Review articles can analyze population-level data in ecological studies or analyze individual-level data in case series, cross-sectional studies, case-control studies, cohort studies, or experimental studies.

Paraphrase from an authored book chapter: Jacobsen, K. H. (2021, Chapter 35, The Submission, Review, and Publication Process) the scientific peer review process is a lengthy process but a highly critical component of publishing scholarly articles. The peer review process is done by having a reviewer with expertise in the field and is familiar with the study evaluating research and review articles. There is often a preliminary review, and important for those who publish articles to select a suitable journal with current and like interests as the study presented. Next, there is an external review process where reviewers can provide comments about the quality of the review submitted to the authors and editors of the scholarly journals. The peer review process may reject manuscripts that are written poorly, have incomplete data or perhaps they find that the writing will not be interesting to their niche of readers. Authors may have the opportunity to revise and resubmit. Once accepted, some peer review submissions are only provisionally accepted by the editors pending slight adjustments to be published. The peer review process can be lengthy and can also vary depending on different evaluations, but it is notable that the most important part of the peer review process is to ensure the integrity and quality of the study before publishing.

In the articles provided, I identified MicroRNA in the diagnosis and therapy monitoring of early-stage triple-negative breast cancer as a primary study since the authors were conducting research on several participants in the study with similar characteristics of early-stage basal-like triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The sentences that defend my evaluation of this study are the following: “A total of 100 blood samples (2.5 mL per patient) were collected in PAXgene tubes for the different microarray and validation cohorts. After arrival and Hummingbird Diagnostics GmbH (Heidelberg, Germany), the blood samples were stored at -80° C until RNA extraction. On the contrary, I classified the provided article, Circulating microRNAs in Medicine as a review article. This review mentions data collected several years prior. For example, one sentence that defends my decision on classifying this as a review article is as follows: “In 2001, it was demonstrated that the introduction of chemically synthesized miRNAs into mammalian cells effectively inhibits gene expression.”

References

Jacobsen, K. H. (2021). The Submission, Review, and Publication Process. In Introduction to health research methods: A practical guide (pp. 263–276). essay, Jones & Bartlett Learning.