Overview
Peer Review
You will likely be asked to find peer reviewed articles in some of your assignments. Depending on the database or resource you use, this may be easy or a little more complicated. Below are some tips with databases examples.
Confirming peer reviewed articles
Note: not every article published in a peer-reviewed journal is a peer-reviewed article.
How Can You Tell if an Article is Peer-reviewed?
Look at the article and check for the following:
--is the article published in a journal affiliated with a university or professional scholarly society or association?
--is the topic discussed in-depth with a narrow focus?
--is the author reporting on his/her original research?
--is the author an expert in the field? Look for credentials and an affiliation with a research institute or university.
A new feature in the library catalog helps to identify peer review quickly with an indicator on the library search results page.
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What if you have an article that didn't come from a database search? Sometimes you get citations from Google, or from a list of references in an article. You can look up the journal to identify if it is peer reviewed.
Use Ulrich's Directory database to see if the journal is peer-reviewed. Enter the journal name into the search box. Look for the referee symbol to the left of the journal title. This indicates that the journal is "refereed" or peer-reviewed.
- Ulrichs Web This link opens in a new windowLists all journals, print and electronic, with publisher information, subscription prices, subject descriptions, web locations, and much more.
- Tutorial: This video tutorial shows how to use Ulrich's to find out if a journal is peer-reviewed. (or see the PDF/slide version)
