When you are determining whether or not the article you found is a peer-reviewed article, you should consider the following.
Does the article have the following features?
Also consider...
- Is the journal in which you found the article published or sponsored by a professional scholarly society, professional association, or university academic department? Does it describe itself as a peer-reviewed publication? (To know that, check the journal's website).
- Did you find a citation for it in one of the databases that includes scholarly publications? (Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, etc.)? Read the database description to see if it includes scholarly publications.
- In the database, did you limit your search to scholarly or peer-reviewed publications? (See video tutorial below for a demonstration.)
- Is the topic of the article narrowly focused and explored in depth?
- Is the article based on either original research or authorities in the field (as opposed to personal opinion)?
- Is the article written for readers with some prior knowledge of the subject?
- If your field is social or natural science, is the article divided into sections with headings such as those listed below?
- Introduction
- Theory or Background
- Methods
- Discussion
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- Literature review
- Subjects
- Results
- Conclusion
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