How to Identify Scholarly/Refereed/Peer Reviewed Articles

In online databases look for--

  • Lengthy, in-depth articles, often presenting original research
  • Frequent in-text citations and a concluding Reference List/Bibliography
  • Language that indicates expert knowledge of the subject
  • Few illustrations except graphs, charts, or tables to summarize data
  • Authors affiliated with universities or research organizations
  • Journal titles referring to an academic discipline or specialized field of study

In hardcopy journals also look for--

  • Few or no ads
  • Little or no color
  • Quarterly, semi-annual, or annual publication
Most scholarly articles will conform to most--but not necessarily all--of the above criteria.

Below is a color-coded example of an APA (American Psychological Association) citation for a scholarly article and illustrates such attributes as--

  • Substantial article length
  • Sophisticated language
  • In-text citations
  • Reference List
  • Scholarly journal title (note frequency of terms such as Journal, Quarterly, Review, or Research)

Bondra, J. & Henderson, J.R. (2003, January). A study of library and reference classes: A survey of over 50 colleges and universities. American Journal of College and University Libraries, 50(2), 411-428.

Sample from text:

In this study we surveyed over 50 four-year colleges and universities about their library reference and instruction classes. We used a survey paradigm designed previously (Strickland, 1999) to gather information about numbers of students enrolled in an introductory course in bibliographic instruction. Previous studies have examined such things as pedagogical epistemology (Sharma, 1996) versus pragmatic heuristics (Smigiel & Saunders, 1997).

Sample from Reference List:

Sharma, K. (1996, June). A prolegomenon to the freshman library research course. New Delhi Journal of Instructional Librarianship, 6(6), 23-36. Retrieved November 13, 2002, from Expanded Academic ASAP.

Smigiel, L & Saunders, B. (1997, Winter). Examination of freshman performance on a library skills test. National Library Journal, 52(1) 16-30.

Strickland, J. (1999, Fall). Survey of reference and instruction classes at State University of New York campuses. Quarterly Review of Research in College Libraries, 14(4), 277-290.