Biology 160 - B. Brady

This page provides resources and information on how to know if a source is scholarly and/or peer-reviewed.

Note: The following is taken from the University of Toronto Libraries's article "What counts as a scholarly source?" with a few edits to make it more relevant to SVC students, staff, and faculty.

Scholarly sources are written by academics and other experts and contribute to knowledge in a particular field by sharing new research findings, theories, analyses, insights, news, or summaries of current knowledge.

Scholarly sources can be either primary or secondary sources. A primary source is an original work of literature, art, or a first-hand account of an event that has not been interpreted by anyone other than its creator. A secondary source is any information written ABOUT the primary source.Scholarly sources can also come in many different formats. Books, articles, and websites can all be scholarly.

Remember, there is sometimes a difference between scholarly and peer-reviewed articles; all peer-reviewed sources are scholarly, but not all scholarly sources are peer-reviewed.

A primary difference between scholarly journals and other types of journals and magazines is that articles in these journals undergo a "peer review" process before they are published.

The process for an article to become "peer-reviewed" is:

1. The author of the article must submit it to the journal editor who forwards the article to experts in the field. Because the reviewers specialize in the same scholarly area as the author, they are considered the author’s peers (hence “peer review”).
2. These impartial reviewers are charged with carefully evaluating the quality of the submitted manuscript.
3. The peer reviewers check the manuscript for accuracy and assess the validity of the research methodology and procedures.
4. If appropriate, they suggest revisions. If they find the article lacking in scholarly validity and rigor, they reject it.

Because a peer-reviewed journal will not publish articles that fail to meet the standards established for a given discipline, peer-reviewed articles that are accepted for publication exemplify the best research practices in a field.

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution from libncsu

When you are determining whether or not the article you found is a peer-reviewed article, you should consider the following.

Does the article have the following features?

You may also wish to view the Anatomy of a Scholarly Article.

Many of the SVC databases provide an option to select "peer reviewed" sources.

To find them:

1. Select a database from the list
2. Enter your search terms
3. Look for the "peer-review" option in the database filters
   • These are usually located near the search box or in the filters on the left side.
   • They often will appear as a small checkbox that says "peer review"
4. Or ask for help from a librarian!