SJSU Research Guides: Mechanical Engineering: Journals & Article Types

Journals for Mechanical Engineering

ASME Digital Collection This link opens in a new window
ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Digital Collection includes the full-text of all ASME journals from 1990 to present. ASME’s conference proceedings and e-books are searchable, but are not available full-text.

Comparing Types of Articles

Research Articles

A research article is a primary source...that is, it reports the methods and results of an original study performed by the authors. The kind of study may vary (it could have been an experiment, survey, interview, etc.), but in all cases, raw data have been collected and analyzed by the authors, and conclusions drawn from the results of that analysis.

Review Articles

A review article is a secondary source...it is written about other articles, and does not report original research of its own. Review articles are very important, as they draw upon the articles that they review to suggest new research directions, to strengthen support for existing theories and/or identify patterns among existing research studies. For student researchers, review articles provide a great overview of the existing literature on a topic. If you find a literature review that fits your topic, take a look at its references/works cited list for leads on other relevant articles and books!

For Engineering fields, trade journals/magazines can be as important as scholarly articles-- but only scholarly journals are peer-reviewed.

The information in a peer-reviewed article is reliable, but it takes a long time to get published.
Trade journals provide current, brief information on the latest discoveries, inventions, and updates.

Table adapted from Meriam Library, California State University, Chico
	Scholarly Journal	Trade Journal/Magazine	News	Conference Proceedings
Purpose	To inform and report on original research or experimentation	To provide news and updates to people in a particular industry or profession	To provide general information to a lay audience	To document new concepts and techniques, work in progress presented at a conference
Peer-reviewed?	Some journals are	Never	Never	Some article proposals are
Cited Sources	Has substantial bibliographies	Occasionally include brief bibliographies	Rarely include bibliographies	Has substantial bibliographies
Authors	Scholars or researchers in the field, specialty	Practitioners and educators within the industry or profession	News reporters or free-lance writers	Scholars or researchers in the field, specialty
Appearance	Articles are lengthy and structured into sections: abstracts, lit. review, method, architecture, results, conclusions, bibliography Contains graphs, charts, photographs supporting the research	Photographs and illustrations used to support the article but also for aesthetic purposes to draw in readers Articles are usually brief and do not follow a certain format	Photographs and illustrations used to support the article but also for aesthetic purposes to draw in readers Articles are usually brief and do not follow a certain format	Articles are lengthy and structured into sections: abstracts, lit. review, method, architecture, results, conclusions, bibliography Contains graphs, charts, photographs supporting the research

Characteristics of Peer-reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed articles are reviewed and evaluated by experts in the field before they are accepted for publication
Articles that are peer-reviewed are published in a peer-reviewed journal
"Refereed" is another word for peer-reviewed
Note: Not all scholarly articles are peer-reviewed

How to verify an article is peer-reviewed

To verify whether an article is peer-reviewed, you need to check whether the journal in which the article is published is peer-reviewed. There are two ways:

1. Long Way — Search for the journal title on Google; go to the journal's website and search (Ctrl + F on Windows; Cmd + F on Mac) for the words peer review. Look on the website for information about the editorial policy, submission process or requirements for author’s submission. This section of the website will often give insight into whether or not the journal has a peer-review process.

2. Preferred Way — Go to Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and search for the journal title. See page: Verifying peer-reviewed