What are scholarly, peer-reviewed, or refereed articles? How do I find them?
Answer
What does it mean when your professor tells you to use only scholarly or academic journal articles for your research? Sometimes they tell you the articles must be peer reviewed or refereed.
What is a scholarly journal? Scholarly journals feature original research or analysis written by experts in academic or professional fields. Journals are excellent for finding out what has been studied or researched on a topic. They are also excellent sources for finding bibliographies that point to other relevant sources of information.
What is a peer reviewed article? Peer reviewed articles have been read and evaluated (refereed) by scholars/experts in that field to make sure that published articles reflect solid scholarship and advance the state of knowledge in a discipline.
Are all scholarly journals peer reviewed? Peer-reviewed and scholarly journals are related but not identical. Not all scholarly journals go through the peer-review process. However, one can assume that a peer-reviewed journal is scholarly.
You can find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles using the Library's OneSearch tool as well as many Library databases. Here's how:
OneSearch
After searching for your topic in OneSearch, use the following filters:
- Under AVAILABLE AT CPP, click on PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS.
- Under RESOURCE TYPE, click on ARTICLES.
Proquest Databases
After searching for your topic in Proquest databases, use the following filter:
- Under PEER REVIEWED, click on PEER REVIEWED.
- Under SOURCE TYPE, click SCHOLARLY JOURNALS.
- If you do not see SCHOLARLY JOURNALS, click on MORE OPTIONS, then click in the INCLUDE box next to SCHOLARLY JOURNALS.
If you have more questions, please email your subject librarian for assistance.