Academic publishing is the subfield of
publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in
academic journal article, book or
thesis form. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted on the Internet is often called "
grey literature". Most scientific and scholarly journals, and many academic and scholarly books, though not all, are based on some form of
peer review or editorial refereeing to qualify texts for publication. Peer review quality and selectivity standards vary greatly from journal to journal, publisher to publisher, and field to field.