Applied Data Science

Characteristics of Peer-reviewed Articles

• Not all scholarly articles are peer-reviewed
• Refereed is just another word for peer-reviewed
• Peer-reviewed articles are reviewed and evaluated by experts in the field before they are accepted for publication
• Articles that are peer-reviewed are published in a peer-reviewed journal

How to identify a peer-reviewed article

In order to verify whether an article is peer-reviewed, you need to check whether the journal in which the article is published is peer-reviewed. There are two ways figure out whether a journal is peer-reviewed: 

1. Common but long way: Search for the journal title on Google; go to the journal's website and search (Ctrl + F on Windows; Cmd + F on Mac) for the words peer review. Look on the website for information about the editorial policy, submission process or requirements for author’s submission. This section of the website will often give insight into whether or not the journal has a peer-review process. 

2. Preferred Way: Go to Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and search for the journal title to see if it's formally considered peer-reviewed. 

3. Not entirely reliable shortcut: Look up the journal in the Journals tab in OneSearch. See if OneSearch tags the journal as Peer-Reviewed. 

In many disciplines, trade journals can be as important as scholarly articles. However, trade journals are not peer-reviewed, as only scholarly journals are. The information in a peer-reviewed article is thorough and reliable but it takes a long time to get published. Trade journals provide brief information on discoveries, inventions, and updates.