Peer Review

You will be asked to find peer reviewed articles or resources in some of your assignments. Peer reviewed journal articles go through a process before acceptance for publication where a team reviews the article for relevance to the subject and quality standards.

Depending on the database or resource you use, this may be easy or a little more complicated. Below are some tips to help you.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Finding Peer-Reviewed Articles in CINAHL

How Can I Find Peer-reviewed Articles?

Many library databases have a peer-review or scholarly filter you can select to limit your searches.

  • In EBSCOhost the filter is in the advanced search screen. Select the radio button.
  • In ProQuest a checkbox option is right under the search box.
  • In PubMed there is no need to look for a selection, all journals included are vetted for peer review.
  • However, if you want to be sure, use Ulrich's Web, mentioned below, to confirm.

Confirming Peer Review article

Note: not every article published in a peer-reviewed journal is a peer-reviewed article. You may find book reviews, editorials and other shorter works that are often not considered peer-reviewed.
How Can I 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.

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What if I have an article that didn't come from a database search, like Google, or from a list of references? How can I find out if it's peer-reviewed?
Use Ulrich's Web 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.