Index
Peer reviewed journals
Many students and researchers often wish to identify and locate journals that have scholarly content and that have gone through a peer-review process. Identifying whether a journal is peer-reviewed can sometimes take time and it is useful to know what to look for and to know which databases will assist you to locate journal articles from peer-reviewed publications.
The peer-review process
Articles that have gone through a peer-review or referee process have been reviewed by experts in the field for suitability of publication to a scholarly journal. Examples of articles that often undergo review are original research, critical scholarly texts and reviews of a field of research.
Identifying peer-reviewed articles or journals:
- The journal has information about an editorial board and procedures for submitting articles for peer review.
- Resources such as the database Web of Knowledge , Science Direct and Springerlink primarily contain scholarly content.
- Peer review information for a journal title may be located on a journal’s website.
- Some databases allow to you to limit your search for just scholarly, peer reviewed or refereed articles. Proquest, Expanded Academic ASAP and now CSA databases will allow you to search for only these kinds of articles.
For example:
Ulrich's Periodicals Directory
Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory™ is bibliographic database providing detailed, information on serials worldwide. It provides information on the journal and includes Table of Contents. It also provides useful information on its status in regard to reviews, whether it is refereed, electronic or open access. It is therefore useful to use when checking to see whether a journal is refereed or not.
Web of Knowledge
The Web of Knowledge database includes Web of Science, Current Contents Connect and Journal Citation Reports. Web of Science, primarily contains scholarly content of citations, with some links to full-text of articles. ISI Journal Citation Reports measure the journal impact factor of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year. The impact factor will help you evaluate a journal's relative importance.
Further information:
Other resources
- The DEST Register of Refereed Journals
- RMIT Research Repository provides free, searchable access to both detailed records and the electronic full text of peer-reviewed published articles and conference papers, books and book chapters produced by RMIT staff.