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What is Peer Review?

Peer review, also called refereeing, is a review process used by most scholarly journals. Before an article is accepted for publication, the editors will send the manuscript to disciplinary experts for review. The reviewers will then provide feedback on the quality of the research in the paper. The author can usually make revisions and re-submit the work for final acceptance.

Why do I care if an article is peer-reviewed?

Peer-reviewed articles are the gold standard for academic research. For students, it means that other experts have read and approved the methods and conclusions of the work, which provides extra authority to the research.

How do I find peer-reviewed articles?

Use subject databases that are identified by librarians as being subject-specific to your research topic or field of research. Subject databases are more likely to include peer-reviewed journals. 

How can I be sure an article is peer-reviewed?

One quick way to tell if an article is peer-reviewed is to look for "submitted/revised/accepted" dates on the first page of the full-text of the article. These dates indicate that the article went through the various steps of the peer-review process.

You can also look up the journal title--not the article title--in UlrichsWeb. Peer-reviewed journals are indicated by a symbol that resembles a referee's jersey. 

Finally, the most authoritative place to look is on the journal's homepage. You can Google the name of the journal and/or publication. Look for a description of the journal that says "peer-reviewed" in an "about" or "editors" section. While there, also look at the "information for authors" or "review policy" pages. These will often detail the peer-review process for each journal, including which sections of the journal are reviewed and which are merely edited.

Lastly, always feel free to ask a librarian through chat, email, or through an appointment/in-person consultation.