Video Transcripts : How do I know if an article is peer reviewed?

How do you know if an article you found is peer reviewed? This video will show you how to check.

Let's say I'm looking at a reference list and find an article that looks interesting. How can I determine if the article is peer reviewed? In this case, we want to investigate an article entitled Stereotyping and Evaluation in Implicit Race Bias: Evidence for Independent Constructs and Unique Effects on Behavior.

The first step is to look for the name of the journal. The journal name is italicized in citations. This article was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

You can use Scholar OneSearch the large search box on the library homepage to find out whether this is a peer reviewed journal. To check if the journal is peer reviewed type the name of the journal into Scholar OneSearch. Here we'll type the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Then we'll click the magnifying button to run a search. Putting quotation marks around the journal title helps retrieve more relevant results. Quotation marks tell Scholar OneSearch to search for the exact title phrase.

If the library subscribes to the journal, it should appear near the top of your results list. Peer reviewed journals will have a purple icon and peer review displaying below them in the results list. If you don't see the journal title in your Scholar OneSearch results, you can use a tool called UlrichsWeb. UlrichsWeb can help you find out whether a journal is peer reviewed.

To access UlrichsWeb, go back to the library homepage and click on the Databases link. From the A-Z list, click on the letter U. Locate UlrichsWeb in the list and click on it. Enter the journal title into the search box. Here we'll enter the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Using quotation marks around the title will help to limit your results.

You may see multiple listings for the print and digital versions of the journal. Look to the left of the journal title to see a referee shirt symbol. This is the symbol for refereed. Refereed means the journal has been peer reviewed.

We can see the symbol next to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. So this journal is peer reviewed. If you don't see the shirt, the journal is not peer reviewed. If you need help searching for peer reviewed sources, check out the tutorial on how to find peer reviewed articles.

Keep in mind that not everything published in a peer reviewed journal is a peer reviewed article. Academic journals also publish editorials, book reviews, commentaries, and other short pieces.

If you are unsure, do one last visual check. The full text of articles will often include labels or cues that identify the text type. This piece is identified as a commentary. To learn more about the other cues to check for view the scholarly versus non scholarly sources tutorial.