History of Journals
The first scholarly journals appeared in 1665; Les Journal des Scavans in Paris, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London. They carried reports of new experiments and findings within science, book reviews, and news of scientists.
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A scientist at the time was usually an amateur; an educated man who conducted experiments in his leisure time. Europe's scientists corresponded with each other, and several French scholars welcomed the Journal, as it relieved them of copying the same news in letters to all their correspondents, who might number several dozen (Brown). That the letter was a common form of research communication at the time is also mirrored in the writing style in these early journal, where most articles took the form of a letter with several addressees. It might also be noted that many of the accounts were not written by the researcher himself, but by one of his correspondents, often the editor of the journal.
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These two were general publications, covering all kinds of academic practise. In the following few decades, between 30 and 90 similar journals were founded. During the following century, the number multiplied to 755, and specialization began to appear . The number continued to rise, and by 1900, about 10 000 journals existed, in 1995, between 70 000 and 80 000. (Tenopir and King, 57)
This enormous increase in the number of journals made it impossible to keep track, and the first abstract journals appeared in mid-nineteenth century (57).
In mid-twentieth century, medical journals and many sciences began to require the formulaic IMRAD structure of journal articles. The standard structure makes it easy for readers to skip to the parts they are interested in.
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Already in the nineteenth century, research writing changed from chronlogical descriptions of experiments and letter style into more discussions of methods and results. Towards the end of the century, an organization of theory, experiment, and discussion became widespread within natural sciences and medicine.
Today's strict "IMRAD" outline of Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, and Discussion, required by most medical journals and in several of the sciences, was formulated in the 1920ies, but did not become widespread in medicine until forty years later (Sollaci and Pereira).
In an IMRAD article, readers know where to find the details they are looking for, without having to scan the whole text, and it not only speeds up the process of looking for results a researcher may build upon, but also peer review processes are believed to go more smoothly with this system
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