—————————————————————————————————————

There is a big difference between the two, which is easy to be misunderstood by non-academic people. Many answers are not concise enough, in layman's terms:

A. Journal papers: need peer review, with low pass rate and high importance.

B. Conference papers: no need for review, high pass rate and low importance.

Generally speaking:

Journal papers are far more important than conference papers.

Papers such as SCI and EI refer to periodical papers.

In the first-class institutions of higher learning at home and abroad, obtaining doctoral degrees and evaluating university titles and academic prestige are mainly based on the quantity and quality of periodical papers.

Many doctoral students can't get their doctorate smoothly and drop out of school. The main reason is that the number of periodical papers is insufficient.