How to Tell if Paper 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 describe the same type of journals. But what are peer-reviewed (or refereed or scholarly) journal manufactures, and why practice kinesthesia require their use?

Three categories of information resources:

• Newspapers and magazines containing news - Manufactures are written by reporters who may or may not be experts in the field of the commodity. Consequently, manufactures may comprise wrong information.
• Journals containing articles written by academics and/or professionals — Although the articles are written past "experts," any particular "expert" may take 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 social club to ensure the article's quality. (The article is more likely to exist scientifically valid, reach reasonable conclusions, etc.) In most cases the reviewers do non know who the author of the article is, then that the article succeeds or fails on its own merit, not the reputation of the expert.

Helpful hint!

Not 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 as articles, and may non be accepted past your professor.

How do you lot determine whether an article qualifies as being a peer-reviewed journal commodity?

First, y'all need to be able to identify which journals are peer-reviewed. At that place are by and large four methods for doing this

1. Limiting a database search to peer-reviewed journals only.
   Some databases permit you to limit searches for articles to peer reviewed journals only. For case, 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 accept to become to an "avant-garde" or "expert" search screen to do this. Think, many databases practice not let you to limit your search in this way.
2. Checking in the database Ulrichsweb.com to determine if the journal is indicated equally existence peer-reviewed.
   If yous cannot limit your initial search to peer-reviewed journals, you lot will need to bank check to run into if the source of an article is a peer-reviewed journal. This can be done by searching the database Ulrichsweb.com. Go to the alphabetical listing of databases and click on the "U". Select Ulrichsweb.com. Information technology helps to type in the exact title of the source periodical including any initial A, AN, or THE in the title. If yous don't find the periodical yous are interested in, y'all may desire to apply Method three below. If your periodical title IS displayed, check to see if the periodical is indicated as beingness refereed past having the symbol side by side to the title.
3. Examining the publication to see if it is peer-reviewed.
   If by using the first ii methods you were unable to identify if a journal (and an commodity therein) is peer-reviewed, yous 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 ever successful with resources available simply online. The following steps are suggested:
   1. Locate the journal in the Library or online, then identify the well-nigh current unabridged year'southward problems.
   2. Locate the masthead of the publication. This oft consists of a box towards either the front end or the end 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 information.
   3. Does the journal say that information technology is peer-reviewed? If so, you're washed! If non, movement on to stride d.
   4. Bank check in and around the masthead to locate the method for submitting articles to the publication.  If you find information similar to "to submit articles, send three copies…", the journal is probably peer-reviewed. In this case, you are inferring that the publication is and then going to send the multiple copies of the article to the periodical's reviewers. This may not e'er be the case, so relying upon this criterion lone may bear witness inaccurate.
   5. If yous do non meet this type of statement in the first outcome of the journal that you expect at, examine the remaining journals to encounter if this information is included. Sometimes publications volition include this information in merely a single outcome a yr.
   6. Is information technology scholarly, using technical terminology? Does the article format approximate the following - abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, and references? Are the manufactures 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 yeah to all these questions , the periodical may very well be peer-reviewed. This decision would exist strengthened by having met the previous benchmark of a multiple-copies submission requirement. If you answered these questions no, the periodical is probably not peer-reviewed.
4. Find the official web site on the internet, and check to see if it states that the periodical is peer-reviewed. Be careful to utilize the official site (ofttimes located at the journal publisher's web site), and, even then, data 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 still unsure, speak to your teacher.

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

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