Peer-Reviewed Journals Tutorial

This tutorial will introduce you to peer-reviewed literature in the sciences.

At the end of this tutorial you should know the major criteria of peer-reviewed articles and be able to identify them.

Peer-reviewed journal articles are those that present original research to the scholarly community.  These articles go through a process called peer review in which they are assessed and approved by a learned advisory group (i.e. peers) before they are published in journals.  In the sciences, peer-reviewed journals may also be called primary research articles, scholarly journal articles, or refereed articles.

The best way to determine if an article has undergone the peer review process is to find evidence that it is required by the journal’s editors or publisher.

Let’s look at an example:

This is a screenshot of NDSU Libraries’ online access to Invasive Plant Science and  Management.

(http://www.bioone.org/loi/ipsm)

Information about the Aims & Scope and/or the Author Guidelines will help us determine if this publication is peer-reviewed.

Clicking on the Aims & Scope link, we’ll see the mission of the journal and its intended audience:

Clicking on the Author Guidelines link, we’ll find the requirement that all work must undergo the peer review process:

In addition to finding information about the journal, you can also determine if an article is a peer-reviewed (scholarly) research article by looking for the following criteria within the article. Peer-reviewed articles must:

• present original research
• undergo the peer review process
• be authored by a scholar(s) or researcher(s)
• list earlier research in a bibliography
• follow formal scientific format:

Abstract

Introduction

Methods
Results
Conclusion
References

They also:

• are usually published by a scholarly society or publisher
• have a sober, serious look
• are written in the language of the discipline (i.e. contain specialized terminology)

The above points are illustrated in the following video:

Another type of publication is the substantive or trade periodical.  These publications are often confused with peer-reviewed journals because they contain high-quality, college-level information; however, they do not meet the requirements of peer-reviewed, scholarly literature.

Here are some differences:

• the purpose of substantive/trade periodicals is to report on developments and trends rather than original research
• there is no peer review process involved in substantive/trade periodicals
• articles may be written by staff, journals, free-lance writers, extension staff
• articles from substantive/trade periodicals do not follow the scientific format
• they may be quite attractive and appeal to a more general audience
• the language used is geared towards an educated audience, but not towards scholars in the field
• sources are sometimes referenced in substantive/trade periodicals, but many times not

Here is a video of three examples:

Can you tell the difference between peer-reviewed (scholarly) and substantive periodicals?

A final type of periodical is the popular magazine.  Examples of popular magazines are Time, Newsweek, People, Sports Illustrated, etc.  While these periodicals often contain current, news-worthy information, they are not peer-reviewed (scholarly).  They do not undergo the peer review process and they do not present original research findings.

_____

We hope this tutorial was useful to you.  If you need further help determining if a periodical is peer-reviewed (scholarly), please contact your instructor or a librarian (701-231-8886).