This assignments purpose was to be able to define primary articles, review articles, and the peer review process as well as be able to identify the primary and review articles based off of the two examples given.

Out of the two articles given, the article titled “Base editing of hematopoietic stem cells rescues sickle cell disease in mice” is the primary article. I believe this because it directly states that the researchers are going to be doing the study as well as describing their processes throughout the study. Some other defining features that show that this is a primary article is the acknowledgements section and the authors manuscript marks. This would mean that the article titled “Hematopoietic Stem Cell Gene-Addition/Editing Therapy in Sickle Cell Disease” is the review article. This is given away by the review label above the title, but you can also tell it is a review by reading the abstract that directly states it is a review. 

Primary research articles, also known as empirical research articles, within the sciences are an original version of a scientific report based on new research that is of the findings directly from that researcher. The type of sections that can be found in a primary article are an Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References. These types of articles get submitted to a journal and that journal will send it off to be reviewed in a process called the peer-review process.¹This is important because professionals in the field will look over the article and verify it is ready to be published if all the qualifications are met. These qualifications are based on originality and quality of information.³

            A secondary article, or a review article, is piece of writing that takes information from other sources and other researchers and places it in one article as a summarization. It acts as the writer’s interpretation of those forms of work, and they are usually more helpful at understanding a baseline idea of that topic.¹ There are some identifiers that can help determine that an article is a secondary article, which are quotes from other scientific research, finding primary sources in the references, as well as not following the flow of sections listed to be in a primary article.

            The peer review process in which a paper is submitted to a journal and then that journal reviews the paper to ensure it meets the required guidelines and then goes on to be checked for the originality and quality of work. The paper may or may not be approved at this point and if approved it moves on to be looked at by editors and reviewers. Once overlooked and comments have been posted to the paper, the paper is then accepted or rejected. If it is accepted it will be sent to production, but if rejected it is sent back to be revised based off the comments attached and the process starts over again.²

Sources

¹Libguides: Tutorial: Scholarly literature types: Primary vs. secondary articles. Primary vs. Secondary Articles – Tutorial: Scholarly Literature Types – LibGuides at Cornell University. (n.d.). https://guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=293669&p=2004549 

²The peer review process. Wiley. (n.d.). https://authorservices.wiley.com/Reviewers/journal-reviewers/what-is-peer-review/the-peer-review-process.html 

³Scrutinizing science: Peer review – understanding science. Understanding Science – How science REALLY works… (2022, September 9). https://undsci.berkeley.edu/understanding-science-101/how-science-works/scrutinizing-science-peer-review/