A periodical, also known as a magazine, refers to a continuous publication with a fixed name, numbered by volume, issue or year, quarter and month, and published in a certain period of time.

Cihai defines a periodical as a periodical publication composed of works on different topics written by many authors.

Journals are mainly translated from three English words: magazine, period and journal. Periodicals have a wide range of meanings, usually including newspapers and magazines. They all belong to serial publications in a broad sense. The word magzine comes from Arabic makhazin, which means warehouse.

Also known as a serial publication, it is a serial publication with a fixed name, which is published regularly or irregularly. Each issue contains articles written by different authors, translators or editors, and is published consecutively in chronological order. The content of each issue is not repeated.

Second, academic journals.

Academic journals mainly publish academic papers, while non-academic journals mainly publish documents, reports, speeches, experiences, knowledge, etc., which can only be used as materials for academic research, but not as articles of papers. Because the selection of "General Introduction" is based on "a large number of articles published", "a large number of articles included" and "a large number of citations", it does not emphasize the boundary between academic journals and non-academic journals, and naturally there is no strict distinction. Specifically, Chinese core journals are divided into academic and non-academic, mainly in two aspects: one is the nature of the journal, and the other is the purpose of the journal.