Peer-Review   Tags: information-literacy, peer-review, video, videos  

Peer-Review in Five Minutes
This five minute video describes and discusses the importance of peer-review and its process.

(NCSU video, 5 min.)

What does "peer-reviewed" or "refereed" mean?

Peer review, also known as refereed, is a process in which experts in related fields of study review and evaluate literature before it is published.  It is largely used with journals to help ensure publish articles represent the best scholarship currently available. When an article is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, the editors send it to other scholars in the same field (the author's peers) to get their opinion on the quality of the scholarship, its relevance to the field, its appropriateness for the journal, etc.

Publications that don't use peer review (Time, Discover, Newsweek, U.S. News) rely on the judgement of the editors whether an article is quality material or not. They are not as reliable because these journals do not rely on solid, scientific scholarship.

Note: This is an entirely different concept from "Review Articles."

How do I know if a journal is peer-reviewed?

One quick & easy way to check if a journal is peer-reviewed is to use the Worldcat library catalog. The example below shows how your results would appear & where to look for the peer-review indicator.

Often, you can tell just by looking. A scholarly journal is visibly different from magazines, but occasionally it can be hard to tell. If you want to be certain that a journal is peer-reviewed, use the Ulrich's Periodical Directory. Type the journal's title into the text box and search, and your results will provide a variety of information about the journal, including whether the journal contains articles that are peer reviewed or refereed.

Test these periodicals in Ulrichs

• American Journal of Education (issn: 0195-6674)
• Nature (issn: 0028-0836)
• Science (issn: 0036-8075)
• Women's Art Journal (issn: 0270-7993)