Currency of Articles
The currency of articles is an important factor in determining how useful they are. A few things need to be considered when evaluating the currency of the document.
- What kind of article is it?
- How quickly is the field changing?
- When was the work done and when was it published?
Since minireview articles gather together many other people's research on a subtopic, the authors have to wait for others to publish and then take the time to compile that information before they can publish the new minireview. For reviews this is an even slower process as they will include the relevant minireviews. Because of this the most recent review on a topic will be based on older data than the most recent minireview in the same field and a primary research article will be based on even newer data. This does not, necessarily, make reviews and minireviews out of date, but it is an important fact to keep in mind.
The speed at which information changes in the particular field is also important. For example a ten year old article on botanical methods is probably still relevant and ten year old article on genomic analysis is probably only of interest for its historical value.
