LibGuides: English Composition: Peer-Reviewed Sources

Peer-Review Articles

Many people use "academic" or "scholarly" sources to mean the same thing as peer-reviewed sources.

Peer-reviewed articles are papers that are reviewed by a panel of experts prior to acceptance and publication

reviewers often evaluate the validity, significance, and originality of a work

As a result, the quality of peer-review articles is generally viewed as high.

Peer-reviewed articles	Scholarly, but not peer reviewed
Run longer than 1 or 2 pages Include footnotes or endnotes Have sections such as abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, list of references. Are written for experts, not the general public	Letters to the editor or opinion pieces Book reviews Academic books

Google the journal title. Look at the journal homepage or Wikipedia for details.
Look for a "peer reviewed" symbol in a library database. For example, in Library Search you can see if an article is published in a peer reviewed journal by the symbol.