How Do You Know a Journal Is Peer Reviewed

How to recognize peer-reviewed (refereed) journals

In many cases professors will require that students utilize articles from "peer-reviewed" journals. Sometimes the phrases "refereed journals" or "scholarly journals" are used to depict the same type of journals. Just what are peer-reviewed (or refereed or scholarly) periodical manufactures, and why practise faculty require their employ?

3 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 article. Consequently, articles may incorporate incorrect information.
• Journals containing manufactures written by academics and/or professionals — Although the articles are written past "experts," any item "expert" may have some ideas that are really "out there!"
• Peer-reviewed (refereed or scholarly) journals - Articles are written past 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 commodity is more likely to be scientifically valid, achieve reasonable conclusions, etc.) In almost cases the reviewers do not know who the author of the commodity is, and then that the article succeeds or fails on its own merit, not the reputation of the expert.

Helpful hint!

Non all information in a peer-reviewed journal is actually refereed, or reviewed. For example, editorials, letters to the editor, book reviews, and other types of information don't count every bit manufactures, and may non be accepted past your professor.

How do you make up one's mind whether an article qualifies as existence a peer-reviewed journal commodity?

Beginning, yous need 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 simply.
   Some databases let you to limit searches for articles to peer reviewed journals only. For example, Academic 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 become to an "advanced" or "practiced" search screen to exercise this. Remember, many databases do not allow y'all to limit your search in this style.
2. Checking in the database Ulrichsweb.com to determine if the periodical is indicated every bit being peer-reviewed.
   If y'all cannot limit your initial search to peer-reviewed journals, y'all will need to cheque to run into if the source of an article is a peer-reviewed periodical. This tin can be done by searching the database Ulrichsweb.com. Get to the alphabetical listing of databases and click on the "U". Select Ulrichsweb.com. It helps to type in the exact championship of the source journal including any initial A, AN, or THE in the title. If you don't find the periodical you lot are interested in, y'all may desire to utilize Method 3 below. If your periodical championship IS displayed, bank check to see if the journal is indicated as beingness refereed by having the symbol next to the title.
3. Examining the publication to see if it is peer-reviewed.
   If by using the start two methods you were unable to place if a periodical (and an article therein) is peer-reviewed, you may so need to examine the journal physically or wait at additional pages of the periodical online to determine if it is peer-reviewed. This method is not ever successful with resource available only online. The following steps are suggested:
   1. Locate the periodical in the Library or online, and so place the most current entire twelvemonth's bug.
   2. Locate the masthead of the publication. This oftentimes consists of a box towards either the front end or the terminate 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 it is peer-reviewed? If and so, you're done! If not, motility on to step d.
   4. Bank check in and around the masthead to locate the method for submitting manufactures to the publication.  If you notice information similar to "to submit articles, transport three copies…", the journal is probably peer-reviewed. In this case, you are inferring that the publication is and then going to ship the multiple copies of the article to the journal'south reviewers. This may not always be the example, so relying upon this criterion alone may prove inaccurate.
   5. If you exercise not run across this type of statement in the get-go issue of the journal that you lot await at, examine the remaining journals to run into if this information is included. Sometimes publications will include this data in but a single consequence a year.
   6. Is it scholarly, using technical terminology? Does the article format estimate 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 ad not-existent, or kept to a minimum? Are there references listed in footnotes or bibliographies? If you answered yep to all these questions , the journal may very well be peer-reviewed. This determination 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 not peer-reviewed.
4. Find the official web site on the internet, and check to see if it states that the journal is peer-reviewed. Be careful to use the official site (ofttimes located at the periodical publisher's web site), and, even then, information could potentially exist "inaccurate."

Helpful hint!

If you lot have used the previous four methods in trying to determine if an article is from a peer-reviewed periodical and are still unsure, speak to your instructor.

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

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