What is a peer-reviewed journal?

Scholarly or peer-reviewed journals, publish original research and experiments in a particular field of study. Authors of scholarly articles are typically scholars or professors in universities.

The intended audience is the scholarly reader, such as professors, researchers, and students in a particular field. As part of the publication process, scholarly articles are reviewed by committees of other notable scholars. Such reviewers are considered to be the writer's peers. This is called the peer-review process. Peer-reviewed articles build upon the scholarship of the past to advance knowledge in a field. Examples include The Journal of the American Medical Association, and American Economic Review.

How do I find a peer-reviewed journal article?

In many of the library's databases, there's an easy way to find peer-reviewed journal articles. If you're using Academic Search Complete, or any of our EBSCO branded databases, on the Advanced Search page, scroll down to find a check box that show's "Peer Reviewed". In some of the library's databases, the search option will say "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals."

After choosing the Peer Reviewed option, run your search in Academic Search Complete. This should limit your search results to just the articles that are published in peer-reviewed journals. This will eliminate news and magazine articles (popular sources) and trade publications from your results. 

There's another easy way to access peer-reviewed articles: After performing a search in Academic Search Complete, you can adjust your search results. In your results list, at the top of the page there's also a box that says "Peer Reviewed." Clicking this will take you to just the articles that are published in peer-reviewed journals.