Journals are publications that contain the latest academic research and writing. Journals are also known as "serials" or "periodicals" because a they are published on a regular basis throughout the year. There are hundreds of journal titles covering all the different areas of research. An example of a journal is the British Journal of Nutrition. Every issue of a journal contains a number of articles that are written by experts in the subject area.
Some key reasons are:
A good place to start is Articles and More on Library Search. There are also specialist databases for your subject area.