What is a Peer-reviewed Article?

Scholarly articles, sometimes known as peer-reviewed, refereed or academic articles, have the following charachteristics:

1. Written by researchers/scholars

2. Reviewed by other researchers/scholars - this process is called peer-review

3. Published in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals

4. Written for an audience of other researchers/scholars

5. Created to share research with others in the scholarly discipline

Peer Review in 3 Minutes

From the NCSU Libraries

How can I tell if it's peer-reviewed?

Many library databases will let you limit to scholarly/peer-reviewed articles. This is a great first step but you still need to check if its peer-reviewed yourself. Try one of these ways:

1. Google the journal title and read about the journal's process for accepting and publishing work. It should mention peer review, not just review by an editor.

2. Look up the journal title in a library database called UlrichsWeb. If it is peer-reviewed (refereed), there will be a little referee shirt there -