Scholarly or academic journals, such as the Journal of Cell Biology, focus on a specific discipline or field and publish only research articles that have been reviewed by experts.
Research-based journal articles are not good sources of introductory information about a subject. They are used as sources for reviews of research, research reports or academic articles written by college and university students and academics.
A research-based journal article presents a hypothesis and contains information about the process of data collection, analysis, interpretation and conclusion from the research data. Some research articles also suggest further research topics.
A research-based journal follows a specific pattern and usually contains the following sections: a review of the literature, the research methodology, the research analysis, the results and a conclusion.
Newspaper articles and articles that express an opinion or contain unoriginal research are not considered research-based journal articles.