Peer review is a process for evaluating research studies before they are published by an academic journal. These studies typically communicate original research or analysis for other researchers. When an article is published in a peer-reviewed journal, you can be certain that experts in the relevant field have read it and, independent of their own particular opinions, verified it to meet a high standard of scholarship. Scholars rely on peer review to ensure that the scholarship they exchange with each other is always based in good research and the established standards of their discipline. 

The Peer Review Process at a Glance:

Related terms you might hear include: 

• Academic: Intended for academic use, or an academic audience. 
• Scholarly: Intended for scholarly use, or a scholarly audience. 
• Refereed: Refers to a specific kind of peer-review process

Peer Reviewed or Refereed 

These terms are interchangeable with each other - the articles are always either reviewed or refereed by multiple experts (peers) in a highly structured and critical process. The author then receives that feedback, makes changes and resubmits the work, and then the journal editor decides whether or not to publish it. 

Academic or Scholarly

These terms are interchangeable with each other, and these articles are not always peer reviewed/refereed. These articles are still research focused and heavily sources (lots of references), and written for an academic audience, but they may have only been reviewed by an editorial board, rather than content experts. 

Looking for peer-reviewed or scholarly articles? Try searching in Catalyst or a library database and look for options to limit your results to scholarly and/or peer-reviewed.

Catalyst

Get scholarly articles in Catalyst, out library catalog. Here's how:

1. Perform a search on your topic. 
2. Select the Scholarly Articles option under Show Only in the Refine My Results column. 
3. All your results will now be scholarly (but not necessarily peer reviewed) articles.

ProQuest

Get peer reviewed articles in ProQuest (including in ProQuest Black Studies). Here's how:

1. Perform a search on your topic. 
2. Select the Peer Reviewed option under the filters column on the left-hand side of the results page.  
3. All your results will now be peer reviewed articles.

Look for these structure elements when you're evaluating an article to confirm that it's peer reviewed:

Article Title

Usually rather lengthy, including technical terms and methodologies.

Author(s) & their Credentials

In addition to their names, you may also see authors' credentials - where they work/teach, their degrees, contact information etc. This information is included to help establish their authority.

Abstract

A brief summary of the article - often divided into the same sections as the article text. Readers use abstracts to quickly determine if the article will help meet their information needs. 

Article Text

The actual text of the article is usually divided into sections with headings: introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion and conclusion. There are frequently also charts and other visual representations of data.  

References 

You'll find in-text or footnotes throughout an academic article, and a length list of corresponding citations at the end of a scholarly article. These references connect a scholarly article to the larger field of research and demonstrate the evidence and other research that the work is based on. References are also a great place to look for additional sources on your topic.