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Structure of Scholarly Articles and Peer Review: Peer Review

Explains the standard parts of a medical research article, compares characteristics of types of journals, and shows how to find peer reviewed articles and journals.

Created by Health Science Librarians

What is a Peer Reviewed Journal?

One of the main characteristics of scholarly journals is the process of peer review. Research articles under consideration for publication in a scholarly journal are sent to experts in the subject field (peers) for evaluation and comment (review). Journals following this process are sometimes called Refereed Journals.

Examples of Databases with a Peer Reviewed Limit


In these databases:

  1. Type the words you want to search in the box at the top
  2. Scroll down to the "Limit your results" section
  3. Select the "Peer Reviewed" check box
  4. Click the Search button

The following image is from CINAHL and shows the Peer Reviewed check box below the publication field. The Peer Reviewed check box may be in a slightly different place in the limit section of other databases. Not all databases provide the option to limit a search to peer reviewed articles.

 

Use Ulrichs to Check Peer Reviewed Status

Search Tip: Be sure to put quotations marks around phrases to make search results more specific.
Select Advanced Search, enter a journal title or subject word(s), click search.
Select Refereed / Peer-reviewed in the Narrow Results option.