Literature (scholarly publications)
Published scholarly writings and research concerning a subject or field, including journal articles, books, conference papers, and reviews.
Journal article: A scholarly paper published in an academic journal, often reporting research or reviewing existing work. Journal articles are a central, regularly updated part of most research literatures.
Bibliographic database: An organized, searchable collection of records describing books, articles, and other publications. Databases make large bodies of scholarly publications discoverable.
Scoping review: A review that maps the extent, range, and characteristics of research on a topic. It surveys a broad literature when the questions or evidence are still taking shape.
Grey literature: Research and informational material produced outside conventional commercial or academic publishing channels. It can contain relevant evidence absent from journal-centered searches.
Literature review: A structured account that summarizes and evaluates existing research on a question or topic. It maps what a body of literature says and where its disagreements lie.
Systematic review: A review that uses explicit, reproducible methods to find, assess, and synthesize research on a question. It turns a defined literature into an auditable synthesis.
Evidence-based medicine: Clinical practice that integrates research evidence with professional expertise and patient values. Clinical decisions draw on literature assessed for relevance and reliability.
Predatory publishing: Publishing practices that exploit scholarly publication models while providing inadequate editorial or review standards. It complicates judgments about which published works merit scholarly trust.
Conference paper: A research paper presented at an academic conference, sometimes published in its proceedings. In some fields, conference papers circulate findings before journal publication.
Meta-analysis: A statistical method for combining results from multiple studies addressing a related question. It can estimate patterns across a literature of comparable quantitative studies.