How to check if a journal is peer-reviewed or to evaluate its scholarly worth.

1. UWE Library Services
Is this journal peer-
reviewed?

2. What do we mean by ‘Peer-Review’?
A peer-reviewed article is:
• written by experts
AND
• reviewed/critically assessed by several other experts in that
field of study before it is published
...in order to:
• check the article‟s quality and accuracy.
For a more detailed discussion, see Wikipedia: Peer Review

3. Should I only use peer-reviewed journals?
A journal article doesn‟t have to be peer-reviewed to still
be considered „scholarly‟.
It is however an extra benchmark to measure the reliability
of the research the article contains.

4. Should I only use peer-reviewed journals?
A „scholarly‟ article which isn‟t peer-reviewed may be a
valuable source of research.
You can use the „Is this article scholarly‟ checklist which
follows to help assess whether you think the article is
suitable to use as evidence to support your own theory or
critical thinking.

5. Identifying peer-reviewed articles
(1) Try limiting your search to only Peer
Reviewed articles Peer-reviewed
Already found an article and want to
check if it is peer reviewed?
Can you look at a printed copy of the (2) Check to see if it indicates it has a
journal from off the shelf? YES peer-review process
NO

6. (3) Check in Ulrich’s International Is there an indication of it being peer-
Periodicals Directory. NO reviewed?
YES
Does this indicate if the journal has a
peer-review process? YES Peer-reviewed
NO
(4) Evaluate how scholarly the article
you are interested in is.

7. (1) Try limiting your search to only Peer
Reviewed articles
Some databases will allow you to select only the „peer-
reviewed‟ articles from any results you find from a search.
Other databases may allow you to select an option to only
search for peer-reviewed articles in the first place (such as
Business Source Premier, EconLit or Health Management
Information Consortium on Ebsco).

8. (1) Try limiting your search to only Peer
Reviewed articles

9. (2) Check to see if a peer-review process is
mentioned in a printed copy of the journal
If available, have a look in a printed copy of the journal to
see if it indicates it has gone through a peer-review process.
This will normally be included in one of the following
locations:-
The journal Masthead (normally within the first few or last few pages of an
issue of the journal, listing publication details, editors etc.)
In any „instructions for authors/contributors‟ on how to submit an article.
The inside back cover or front cover of an issue.

10. “... all manuscripts published
by Dekker journals are peer-
reviewed...“

11. “... all submissions will be blind
reviewed… the guidelines for reviewers
are available on the AMJ Web page...“

12. “... all document information identifying
the author should be removed to allow
them to be sent anonymously to
referees…“

13. (2) Check to see if a peer-review process is
mentioned in a printed copy of the journal
What else to look for:
If it doesn‟t explicitly state articles are peer-reviewed, look for instruction on
how to submit a manuscript for publication. If you found any instructions
similar to “submit three printed copies to…” then the journal is probably peer-
reviewed.
You may need to check more than one issue of a journal – publishers may not
include submission information in all issues of their journal, and sometimes
this will only be included in a single issues during any one year.

14. (3) Check in Ulrich’s International
Periodicals Directory.
You can use a directory of serials and periodicals, such as Ulrichsweb.com
which may include details as to whether a specific publication goes through
a peer-review process.
Ulrich‟s can be
accessed via the A-
Z list of databases:

15. (3) Check in Ulrich’s International
Periodicals Directory.
You can then search for the journal by title (exact) or title (keyword).
In the results list, any journal which undergoes a peer-review process (for
at least some of its content) is denoted by a symbol (a referee‟s shirt).

16. (4) Evaluating how scholarly an article is
• If it isn‟t clear if a journal is peer-reviewed or not, you will need to use your own
judgment to evaluate whether the article you are interested in is of a suitable
standard to use for the purpose you intend.
• One measure you could use is how „scholarly‟ an article is. When we describe an
article as „scholarly‟ we mean an article which appears to have undertaken
extensive and appropriate research on a topic. This is to distinguish it from those
articles which may be more „newsy‟ in their content and are just informing readers
of recent developments without any in depth research to support any.
• A „scholarly‟ article which isn‟t peer-reviewed may still be a valuable source of
research. You can use the checklist which follows to help assess whether you think
the article is suitable to use as evidence to support your own theory or critical
thinking.

17. 1) Does the article use technical or academic terminology e.g. „looked-after Use caution
children‟, or „substance abusers‟ rather than „drug addicts‟? NO
YES
2) Does the author include a list of references to other works they have Use caution
used to support their research? NO
YES
3) Does the author include a summary of the methodology by which the Use caution
research was conducted or the literature reviewed? NO
YES
The more ‘Yes’ answers you can tick
off, the more ‘scholarly’ the article is
likely to be.