What is peer review?
Peer review is most often applied to journal articles and usually happens before an article is published. Authors submit their article to a peer-reviewed journal and the editors will identify experts on the article topic who volunteer their time to review articles. These reviewers will provide feedback on the article and the authors will incorporate this feedback prior to publication.
Why do we use peer-reviewed sources in academic writing?
The goal of peer review is to build trust in the validity, accuracy, quality, and originality of research. Peer review is not perfect, but it is a common mechanism for ensuring that journals are publishing high-quality research. For this reason, it is common for researchers to cite and publish their own work in peer-reviewed journals. Similarly, when you write papers for your classes, your professors will often ask you to use and cite peer-reviewed sources in your research.
How can I find peer-reviewed journal articles for my paper?
The library provides access to over 1600 databases and many of them contain peer-reviewed journal articles. Start with the databases listed under the “Journal Articles” section of the Find Sources page on this guide.
Most library databases will have an option to filter your search results by peer-reviewed journal articles. Clicking this option will return only those articles that have gone through peer review in your search results. Below is an example of a search limiter from the Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text database. You should look for similar search limiters in other databases.
