LIS 4934: BSIS Senior Capstone

Many scholarly journals are considered peer reviewed.  Prior to publishing an articled in a peer-reviewed journal, the article is sent to a group of editors or scholars in the field and is reviewed.  The reviewers evaluate the methodology, research design, etc. of the article and their recommendations and reviews are sent to the journal editor and author(s). Evaluations may be accept as is, accept with revisions, or reject. If revisions are needed, the author(s) revise the article as needed and resubmit.

Most databases provide the ability to limit/filter results of a search to peer-reviewed or refereed journals. Usually there is a check box on the search page, such as the Libraries' Quicksearch shown below, that will guarantee that results come from peer-reviewed journals.

CAVEAT! Many peer-reviewed journals do have limited content that does not go through the peer-review process, such as editorials, commentaries, monthly columns, and book reviews. These will not follow the article type formats identified in the pdf linked in the previous box.

Some databases, as well as Google Scholar, do not indicate whether a journal is peer reviewed. There is no way to include "peer reviewed" in your search strategy.

In order to determine if an article comes from a peer-reviewed journal, you can use the database Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory. To find/access Ulrichs, use the search box on the Libraries homepage, select the Databases tab, click the letter "U," then scroll down to the Ulrichs link.  There is also a link at the bottom of this section.

On the Ulrichs site, enter either title keywords or the exact title of the journal in the search box, then click search. An exact title, for example, would be Communications in Information Literacy. The results will display journals that match or are close to that title (see below). The referee shirt symbol  indicates that the journal is refereed/peer-reviewed. For more information about the journal, click on its title.