Professional journals

Other journals will fall into the professional category. This means that they are designed to keep you up-to-date with issues relevant to particular professions. A typical example of a professional journal is the Nursing Times. These types of journals do not usually include such in-depth articles and the articles are often based more on practical issues rather than original research and are usually much shorter in length. You will notice that the articles don’t include a structured abstract at the start and often only refer to a few references.

Professional journals do however also include all sorts of other information, such as short news items, book reviews, details of events and job sections.

Whilst these journals are very useful in keeping you up-to-date with professional issues, they do not provide you with the original research that you will need to back up arguments in your assignments.