How Do You Check if an Article Is Peer Reviewed?

How to recognize peer-reviewed (refereed) journals

In many cases professors will require that students apply articles from "peer-reviewed" journals. Sometimes the phrases "refereed journals" or "scholarly journals" are used to describe the aforementioned type of journals. Simply what are peer-reviewed (or refereed or scholarly) periodical articles, and why do faculty require their use?

Three categories of information resources:

• Newspapers and magazines containing news - Articles are written by reporters who may or may not be experts in the field of the commodity. Consequently, articles may contain wrong information.
• Journals containing articles written by academics and/or professionals — Although the articles are written past "experts," whatever particular "expert" may have some ideas that are really "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 article's quality. (The article is more than likely to be scientifically valid, attain reasonable conclusions, etc.) In most cases the reviewers do not know who the author of the commodity is, so that the article succeeds or fails on its own merit, not the reputation of the good.

Helpful hint!

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

How practise you make up one's mind whether an article qualifies every bit being a peer-reviewed journal commodity?

First, yous demand to be able to place which journals are peer-reviewed. There are generally four methods for doing this

1. Limiting a database search to peer-reviewed journals only.
   Some databases allow yous to limit searches for articles to peer reviewed journals only. For case, Bookish Search Complete has this characteristic on the initial search screen - click on the pertinent box to limit the search. In some databases you may have to go to an "avant-garde" or "practiced" search screen to practice this. Remember, many databases do non let you to limit your search in this way.
2. Checking in the database Ulrichsweb.com to determine if the journal is indicated as being peer-reviewed.
   If yous cannot limit your initial search to peer-reviewed journals, you will need to check to see if the source of an article is a peer-reviewed periodical. This can be washed by searching the database Ulrichsweb.com. Become to the alphabetical list of databases and click on the "U". Select Ulrichsweb.com. It helps to type in the verbal title of the source journal including any initial A, AN, or THE in the title. If you don't notice the journal you are interested in, you may want to utilize Method 3 beneath. If your journal title IS displayed, check to see if the journal is indicated as existence refereed by having the symbol adjacent to the title.
3. Examining the publication to see if information technology is peer-reviewed.
   If past using the first two methods yous were unable to identify if a periodical (and an article therein) is peer-reviewed, you may then need to examine the journal physically or look at additional pages of the journal online to make up one's mind if it is peer-reviewed. This method is not always successful with resource available only online. The following steps are suggested:
   1. Locate the journal in the Library or online, then identify the most current entire twelvemonth's issues.
   2. Locate the masthead of the publication. This oft consists of a box towards either the front or the terminate of the periodical, and contains publication information such as the editors of the journal, the publisher, the place of publication, the subscription cost and similar data.
   3. Does the periodical say that it is peer-reviewed? If so, you're washed! If not, move on to pace d.
   4. Bank check in and effectually the masthead to locate the method for submitting manufactures to the publication.  If you observe information like to "to submit articles, send 3 copies…", the journal is probably peer-reviewed. In this case, you are inferring that the publication is then going to ship the multiple copies of the commodity to the journal'due south reviewers. This may not always exist the instance, then relying upon this criterion alone may testify inaccurate.
   5. If yous do non see this type of argument in the starting time effect of the periodical that yous await at, examine the remaining journals to see if this information is included. Sometimes publications will include this information in only a unmarried issue a yr.
   6. Is it 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 advertisement not-existent, or kept to a minimum? Are in that location references listed in footnotes or bibliographies? If you answered yes to all these questions , the journal may very well be peer-reviewed. This decision would be strengthened past having met the previous benchmark of a multiple-copies submission requirement. If you answered these questions no, the journal is probably non peer-reviewed.
4. Find the official web site on the internet, and check to meet if it states that the journal is peer-reviewed. Be careful to use the official site (often located at the journal publisher's web site), and, even and so, information could potentially be "inaccurate."

Helpful hint!

If you take used the previous iv methods in trying to determine if an article is from a peer-reviewed journal and are withal unsure, speak to your teacher.

bennettwisford.blogspot.com

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

Share this post