Evaluating Information Sources: What Is A Peer-Reviewed Article?

Anali Perry, a librarian from Arizona State University Libraries, gives a quick definition of a peer-reviewed article.

This 3 minute video from the Peabody Library at Vanderbilt University talks about the differences between popular and scholarly articles.  It also mentions trade publications. 

In academic publishing, the goal of peer review is to assess the quality of articles submitted for publication in a scholarly journal. Before an article is deemed appropriate to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must undergo the following process:

• The author of the article must submit it to the journal editor who forwards the article to experts in the field. Because the reviewers specialize in the same scholarly area as the author, they are considered the author’s peers (hence “peer review”).
• These impartial reviewers are charged with carefully evaluating the quality of the submitted manuscript.
• The peer reviewers check the manuscript for accuracy and assess the validity of the research methodology and procedures.
• If appropriate, they suggest revisions. If they find the article lacking in scholarly validity and rigor, they reject it.

Because a peer-reviewed journal will not publish articles that fail to meet the standards established for a given discipline, peer-reviewed articles that are accepted for publication exemplify the best research practices in a field.

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?

The easiest and fastest way to find peer-reviewed articles is to search the online library databases, many of which include peer-reviewed journals. To make sure your results come from peer-reviewed (also called "scholarly" or "academic") journals, do the following:

1. Read the database description to determine if it features peer-reviewed articles.
2. When you search for articles, choose the Advanced Search option. On the search screen, look for a check-box that allows you to limit your results to peer-reviewed only.
3. If you didn't check off the "peer-reviewed articles only" box, try to see if your results can organized by source. For example, the database Criminal Justice Abstracts will let you choose the tab "Peer-Reviewed Journals."

Video tutorial

Watch this video through to the end. It will show you how to use a library database and how to narrow your search results down to just peer-reviewed articles.