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Master: Strategic Communication

Peer Review

  • Many writing assignments require students to use "research", "scholarly", "peer-reviewed", or "refereed" journals. These terms are often used interchangeably, although "peer-reviewed" is the clearest and most specific way to designate this type of publication.
  • Peer-reviewed journals require an author's peers - other scholars/experts in the same field - to review an article for accuracy and bias before it is recommended for publication. Often this recommendation must be made blindly, without the reviewer knowing who the author is. Because of this process, peer-reviewed articles are considered more credible and trustworthy for research purposes.
  • To fully understand peer review, watch this video Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals (3:12), to see and understand the differences between scholarly journals, trade publications, and general magazines.

Most of our databases have the option to limit search results to peer-reviewed journals. 

See the examples below from Discovery, Gale's Academic OneFile, and EBSCO's Business Source Ultimate to show you where to limit a search to peer-reviewed articles

Discovery Search for journal articles

 

Gale Databases showing Academic OneFile - this location is the same in all Gale Databases

 

EBSCO Databases showing Business Source Ultimate - this location is the same in all EBSCO Databases

Mar 19, 2024

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DISCOVERY Search for journal articles

ATLA Basic Search - Limit to Peer Review

EBSCO Database Advanced Search showing Business Source Ultimate - this location is the same in all EBSCO Databases

EBSCO Database Basic Search showing Business Source Ultimate - this location is the same in all EBSCO Databases

Gale Databases Advanced Search showing Academic OneFile - this location is the same in all Gale Databases

Gale Databases Basic Search is showing Academic OneFile. This location is the same for all Gale databases.