Primary Article vs. Review Article
After a scientist conducts an experiment, it is common for them to analyze the results and
create an article about their findings. This type of article is called a primary article, an article that
reports on newly found information, including experiment results or an analysis of a combination
of information for several studies. An example is when a college professor finalizes a study
about how blue light affects several aspect of life for college students. That professor than
constructs a primary article about the results of the study as well as using information they used
from pervious studies done withs similar parameters. Since primary articles are developed from
the individuals that carried out the studies, primary article are considered to be a more reliable
source of information.
After primary articles are constructed, there are some people that have different
perspectives on the studies performed and want to express their ideas about the primary article.
This type of article is called a review article. In its name, a review article is a review of a primary
article. An example could be a graduate student that, was not in the study, but still experiences
the results found in the study done about effect of blue light on college students. This student
will add their ideas and insight on how blue light affected them, while also citing back to the
primary article as to why they are adding their ideas. Since the review article is not created by
someone that physically performed the study or experiment, a review article is not as reliable as
a primary article.
In order for articles to be published to be published to a journal, they must go through the
peer review process. This process includes having an authors peers review the article they
created to deem it acceptable for submission to the journal. An example is when the professor
that created the primary article about blue light effect on college students, the article is then sent
to other professors that work in the same discipline or have conducted a similar study. These professors than can make edits to the article for it to be revised later or deem it worthy of being
in a journal. The process denies any faulty or misleading studies to be submitted to a journal and
accepted for others to see.
Using the information provided earlier, there are two different articles that must be
determined either a primary article or review article. After close analysis, the article titled “Rapid
and Sensitive Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Using Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short
Palindromic Repeats” by J.H. Tsou et. al, is a primary article. “We obtained NR-52286 and NR52349 samples from the BEI Resources” (Tsou 2019). This quote like many others in the article
talks in the first person in the point of view of the ones carrying out the studies. Moving onto the
second article, “Development of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic
repeats/CRISPR-associated technology for potential clinical applications” by Y. Y. Haung et. al,
is a review article. “In CRISPR/Cas systems, researchers have discovered various Cas proteins
with different characteristics” (Haung 2022). This quote speaks in the third person, as if it was
viewing the researcher and discussing about how those researchers conducted the study. It is also
easy to differentiate the two because the second article also has a date when the peer review
article was started.
Reference
Huang, Y.-Y., Zhang, X.-Y., Zhu, P., & Ji, L. (2022). Development of clustered regularly
interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated technology for potential
clinical applications. World Journal of Clinical Cases, 10(18), 5934–5945.
https://doi.org/10.12998/wjcc.v10.i18.5934
Tsou, J.-H. Liu, H. Stass, S.A.; Jiang, F. Rapid and Sensitive Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Using
Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. Biomedicines 2021, 9, 239.
https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9030239