How Can You Tell if a Source Has Been Peer-reviewed

How to recognize peer-reviewed (refereed) journals

In many cases professors will crave that students utilize manufactures from "peer-reviewed" journals. Sometimes the phrases "refereed journals" or "scholarly journals" are used to depict the aforementioned type of journals. But what are peer-reviewed (or refereed or scholarly) journal articles, and why exercise faculty require their use?

3 categories of data resource:

• Newspapers and magazines containing news - Articles are written by reporters who may or may not be experts in the field of the article. Consequently, manufactures may contain incorrect information.
• Journals containing articles written by academics and/or professionals — Although the articles are written by "experts," whatsoever item "expert" may accept some ideas that are actually "out there!"
• Peer-reviewed (refereed or scholarly) journals - Articles are written by experts and are reviewed by several other experts in the field before the article is published in the journal in order to ensure the commodity's quality. (The commodity is more than likely to be scientifically valid, achieve reasonable conclusions, etc.) In about cases the reviewers do not know who the author of the commodity is, then that the article succeeds or fails on its own merit, non the reputation of the expert.

Helpful hint!

Not all information in a peer-reviewed journal is actually refereed, or reviewed. For example, editorials, messages to the editor, book reviews, and other types of data don't count as articles, and may not be accepted by your professor.

How do yous determine whether an commodity qualifies as being a peer-reviewed journal article?

First, you need to be able to place which journals are peer-reviewed. There are generally 4 methods for doing this

1. Limiting a database search to peer-reviewed journals only.
   Some databases let you to limit searches for articles to peer reviewed journals only. For instance, Academic Search Complete has this feature on the initial search screen - click on the pertinent box to limit the search. In some databases you lot may have to go to an "avant-garde" or "expert" search screen to do this. Call back, many databases do not permit you to limit your search in this way.
2. Checking in the database Ulrichsweb.com to make up one's mind if the journal is indicated every bit beingness peer-reviewed.
   If you cannot limit your initial search to peer-reviewed journals, you will need to bank check to run across if the source of an article is a peer-reviewed journal. This can be done past searching the database Ulrichsweb.com. Become to the alphabetical listing of databases and click on the "U". Select Ulrichsweb.com. It helps to blazon in the exact title of the source periodical including any initial A, AN, or THE in the title. If yous don't discover the journal you are interested in, y'all may want to apply Method 3 below. If your periodical championship IS displayed, check to see if the periodical is indicated equally being refereed past having the symbol adjacent to the title.
3. Examining the publication to come across if it is peer-reviewed.
   If by using the first two methods you were unable to identify if a journal (and an article therein) is peer-reviewed, yous may then need to examine the journal physically or look at additional pages of the periodical online to decide if it is peer-reviewed. This method is non always successful with resource available only online. The post-obit steps are suggested:
   1. Locate the journal in the Library or online, then identify the well-nigh current entire year'southward issues.
   2. Locate the masthead of the publication. This oftentimes consists of a box towards either the front or the end of the periodical, and contains publication information such as the editors of the periodical, the publisher, the place of publication, the subscription cost and similar information.
   3. Does the journal say that information technology is peer-reviewed? If so, y'all're done! If not, movement on to footstep d.
   4. Check in and around the masthead to locate the method for submitting articles to the publication.  If y'all discover information similar to "to submit manufactures, transport three copies…", the journal is probably peer-reviewed. In this case, you are inferring that the publication is and then going to transport the multiple copies of the article to the journal'south reviewers. This may not always be the case, and then relying upon this criterion solitary may show inaccurate.
   5. If yous do non see this type of argument in the outset outcome of the journal that you wait at, examine the remaining journals to run into if this information is included. Sometimes publications will include this information in but a single issue a year.
   6. Is information technology scholarly, using technical terminology? Does the article format approximate the following - abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, and references? Are the articles written by scholarly researchers in the field that the periodical pertains to? Is advertising non-existent, or kept to a minimum? Are in that location references listed in footnotes or bibliographies? If you answered yep to all these questions , the journal may very well exist peer-reviewed. This determination would be strengthened by having met the previous benchmark of a multiple-copies submission requirement. If you lot answered these questions no, the journal is probably not peer-reviewed.
4. Notice the official web site on the internet, and check to meet if it states that the journal is peer-reviewed. Be conscientious to use the official site (oftentimes located at the journal publisher's web site), and, even then, information could potentially be "inaccurate."

Helpful hint!

If you have used the previous four methods in trying to determine if an commodity is from a peer-reviewed journal and are all the same unsure, speak to your instructor.

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Source: https://www.angelo.edu/library/handouts/peerrev.php

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