Family Science 188 - Hill

Peer-reviewed journals (also called "scholarly" or "academic" journals) contain original research articles within a specific subject domain.

These articles are reviewed by other experts before publication and share many or all of these qualities:

• List authors' names, email addresses, and affiliations (e.g. Univ. of Nebraska-Kearney)
• Use section headers (these may vary): Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion
• Include tables or figures of statistical data
• Cite references to other quality sources

Here are two examples:

NOTE: Some peer-reviewed journals will include literature reviews, book reviews, and opinion essays. None of these present original research however!

This table summarizes the differences between peer-reviewed journals and other periodicals.

If you have further questions, please ask a librarian!

These tips also appear in Lesson 1 of the Library Research Tutorial, and pertain to the "Advanced Search" feature of Library Search, PsycINFO, and Sociological Abstracts.

Using an asterisk wildcard (*) at the end of a partial word will broaden search results by including multiple word endings.

When searching for a specific phrase (two or more words together), adding quotation marks around that phrase will typically narrow your search results.

For example:

• Using child* will search for all variations of the word child, including children, children's, or childhood.
• A search on "sexual strategies theory" -- with the quotation marks included -- will retrieve only those records containing these three words together in this exact order.