James Madison University Libraries & Educational Technologies http://www.lib.jmu.edu

Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Journals 

(also called refereed journals)

Scholarly vs Popular

 

Scholarly articles are written by experts in the field and will include their credentials have bibliographies of works cited, and use specialized terminology of the field.
Popular works, such as magazine and newspaper articles, are written for the general public, avoid specialized terminology of the field, do not have bibliographies, and may be written by authors who have no expertise on the topic.

What is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal?

A peer-reviewed or refereed journal is one in which manuscripts submitted by authors are reviewed by experts on the topic before being accepted for publication in the journal.  Some scholarly journals do not have a peer review process, but have an editorial board that reviews articles to judge their quality.  Both peer review and editorial board review are indicators of high quality.

How do I find peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles?

Look in Research Databases to find peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.  Some databases make it easy:

• Academic Search Complete:  Limit to “Scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals”

• WilsonWeb:  Limit to  “Peer-reviewed”

What if the article I need is not full-text?

• Request the article through
• The library will
  • scan articles from bound and microform journals and email them to you free of charge

  or

  • order a copy through Interlibrary Loan if it is not available in the library or online.

I have an article, but I am not sure it is peer-reviewed.  How can I tell?

• First, look at the article and make sure it is scholarly and not a news article.

• Look up the journal in Periodical Locator and click on Title details from ulrichsweb.com™

• This link will indicate if the journal is “refereed.”

Lynn Cameron

Carrier Library, August 2008