Penfield Library

Locate Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Remember that your best source of help is the librarian at the Information Desk in the Library. You may call or email the Information Desk at: 315-312-4267 or askalibrarian@oswego.edu.

Peer Reviewed journals are also referred to as "scholarly", "professional" or "refereed journals". These journals contain articles written by experts in their chosen fields. A group of professionals from the field, (the author's peers), review the articles to ensure that the information and research methods are correct. For these reasons these articles form the basis of serious research and study.

Now, how do you determine if a particular journal is peer reviewed?

One method is to limit your searches in our databases to peer reviewed journals. InfoTrac OneFile, ABI Inform, and several FirstSearch based databases have this option. If you have difficulty using these options, ask for help at the Information Desk. You may need to use the Advanced Search option to access the peer reviewed limits. These limits are not always fool proof, but will help you narrow your search significantly.

But what if the database I'm using doesn't have a place to click to limit to "scholarly" or "refereed" journals? How can I tell if something is scholarly? Here are a few clues to look for to help you determine if something fits in the "scholarly" category:

  • Are the author's credentials listed? Is there any information about the author(s) to help determine the knowledge or expertise in the subject about which he is writing? Is the author even listed?
  • What is the intended audience for this particular article? Is it intended to be read by other scholars or practitioners in the field, or can it be read and understood by a general audience?
  • Is there a list of reference, citations or a bibliography of sources used by the author(s)? Are there footnotes or endnotes?
  • Is there an abstract or "author's abstract" at the beginning of the article?
  • Does the article follow a certain format: abstract, description of the experiment or study (including methods used, target population, etc. if listed), results of the experiment or study, discussion of the results, conclusions, bibliography/sources/references/citations/endnotes.
  • Does the journal have a "serious" look to it: few, if any pictures, and fewer still in color? Does it have graphs, charts or tables? Few advertisements?

Once you locate the journal in print format, look at the first few pages. Journals will indicate their selection and editoral process there. In addition, you can consult reference books which will indicate if the journal is a peer reviewed. These books include "Ulrich's Periodicals Directory" and "The Serials Directory". In the last volume of Ulrich's, there is an index section for refereed journals by subject. Ask for these books at the Information Desk.

You may also want to ask for your professor's opinion if you have a question about a specific journal source.