Find what you need in our searchable Library FAQs.
509 views | 0 Vote this question as useful. 0 Vote this question as not useful. | Last updated on Feb 28, 2023 Articles Peer-review
“Peer review” is a process that many articles go through before being published in a scholarly journal. Once the article is written, it is sent to several experts in the same field (the article author’s peers), and those people review the article to make sure it is making an original and valuable contribution to the academic literature. Once the article has been “peer-reviewed,” it can be published in a scholarly journal.
In terms of your research, “peer-reviewed” articles are articles that have passed a basic quality threshold. This means that you can generally trust peer-reviewed articles to be truthful and not have a specific commercial agenda (unlike articles on the web or in a popular magazine). Don’t let your guard down too much, though! Just because an article has passed the peer-review process does not mean everybody in the academic community thinks that it is good research. Many scholars may disagree with the viewpoints expressed in the article, the assumptions it makes, or the conclusions reached by the authors — so you should still always read carefully and think critically!
For the most part, peer-reviewed articles are the same as “scholarly” articles. Note, however, that not all articles that appear in scholarly journals are necessarily peer-reviewed. Letters, book reviews, editorials etc. may appear in these journals without having gone through a peer-review process.
See also: How can I make sure I'm finding peer-reviewed/scholarly articles?
Questions? Ask Us! (see links on the right under More Help)