How Do I Know if an Article Is Peer Reviewed on Google Scholar

Information technology's non always like shooting fish in a barrel to tell if a source is scholarly! There are lots of gray areas. Below is a list of common things that yous might not exist likewise sure about when information technology comes to determining if a source is scholarly or non. If you click any of the list items, they'll expand to requite you some more context.

The list is also color-coded!

Blue means your source is very probable scholarly!

Purple ways it could go either way, simply your source is probably scholarly

Orange means it could go either manner, only your source is probably non scholarly

Red means your source is very probablenot scholarly

Light-green means your source is a real wild card and whether it'south scholarly or not will depend on your answers to other questions in this list

Is the text published in a peer-reviewed journal?

How practice I know? If yous're using a database to discover manufactures, most of those will identify a periodical as peer-reviewed or not.

Yous can also google the journal. Most of them are very eager for people to know they're peer-reviewed, and so that info should come up right up. If it's not immediately obvious, look at the journal'due south website on pages like "about," "author guidelines," "submission guidelines," or like.

Remember, if your source is peer-reviewed, it's scholarly!

Is the publisher of the text an bookish or university printing, or some other kind of research institution?

How practise I know? Locate the proper name of the publisher starting time.

For a journal article, you'd usually just want to see if the journal is peer-reviewed, equally in the communication above.

For a volume, the publisher is usually located on the front or back cover, also as within the first few pages, sometimes in large print but always in the copyright info. If a book is published by a academy press, it's nearly always been peer-reviewed too.

Does the text present original research conducted past the author(south) or an original theory, concept, or estimation constructed by the author(south)?

How exercise I know? Read the article, or preferably the abstruse (summary) if in that location is ane. Does it mention a report or other investigation? Is in that location annihilation about a new contribution to an ongoing problem or result? Can you tell if the author collected whatever data (whether qualitative, like survey answers, or quantitative, like just hard numbers)?

Does the text include a methodology or methods section?

How do I know? If you lot browse the article, you can commonly identify a department that details any methodology they used. Sometimes it'south outright labeled, but sometimes you might but have to look for a section of the article in which they talk nigh how they conducted or approached their research.

Does the text contain a literature review?

How practice I know? Scan the article. Sometimes there will be a section labeled "Literature Review," "Groundwork," or similar, or you may just have to assume that they did one because there's a lot of other people's research listed in the references list at the cease. If there's no reference list, you lot probably don't have a scholarly source.

Basically, a literature review is where the writer gathers and analyzes all the literature they can find on the topic they want to write most, in order to brand certain they've got enough foundational cognition about that topic as well as to know what has or hasn't been written about that topic before. By and large, scholars want to write virtually a topic from a perspective that hasn't been explored before, so doing this review often helps them to decide if it's worth writing about.

Does the writer list the publication on their CV or professional website equally a scholarly or peer-reviewed publication?

How do I know? Scholars and researchers oftentimes list their publications categorically on a professional website or CV ("Curriculum Vitae"). You can sometimes—only not always—observe CVs online. Google the author'due south proper name. If they don't come up, you can attempt googling their title along with their name (usually something vague will exercise it, like "Jane Doe professor Fairfield U").

Did yous know? The number of scholarly publications an bookish has on their tape can matter when it comes to tenure and promotion. Tenure is sought by professors because it makes their position at a higher or university indefinite—meaning that they can't be fired except under extraordinary circumstances. That makes it easier for you to determine if their work is scholarly because they're going to be extra sure to provide that information anywhere they can.

Is the author identifiable equally a scholar, researcher, or adept?

How do I know? Expect for places in the text that link the author(s) with an academic or research institution (like in the instance here). You might see institutions listed beneath the writer'due south proper noun or bios at the end of the text.

Be aware: Not everything a scholar, researcher, proficient, or academic publishes is "scholarship." When determining if something is scholarly, it's not just the author that matters, but also where it's published.

Does the text feature specialized vocabulary specific to an bookish discipline, field, or profession?

How do I know? If you're not familiar with the vocabulary of a discipline yourself, you can usually google some of the more puzzling terms to see if whatever information comes upwards about them, like a Wikipedia commodity or other website. Usually you'll be able to figure out whether that's language that'south common to a certain bailiwick or not.

Why is this important? Scholars and researchers publish their findings and ideas in club to contribute to the knowledge of their field. Scholarly sources are a typical (and in some fields, an expected or even required) platform to publish those findings.

Because scholarly sources are intended to continue members of a specific field or discipline upward to date on contempo research, the target audience is other experts and not the general public. The language, references, and "mutual noesis" will be specific to that field or subject field.

Does the text include black-and-white (or even color) charts, graphs, or other visual representations of information?

Why does this matter?Usually, scholarly sources volition represent data in a "irksome" fashion, i.e., no color, mostly charts and graphs, any photos are usually as well in black-and-white, etc.

This is not always the case, still, as visual blueprint norms tin vary across or even within fields. For case, this article inKairos, a peer-reviewed online rhetoric journal, is very visually interesting and colorful: Copyright, Content, and Control: Student Authorship Across Educational Technology Platforms

Does the text include in-text citations to scholarly info and a reference list at the end (or pes- or endnotes) that follow a specific citation manner?

Why is this of import? If an author is citing their sources responsibly using a set citation format that ways what you lot're looking at it is more likely to exist scholarly.

Why does it affair if they're citing other scholarly info? Scholars want to make sure their work fits into existing scholarly conversations, so they'll want to make references to other scholarly works within said conversation. Doing so reinforces that you're knowledgeable in this topic and allows you lot to refer to bear witness to back up your argument. It also allows y'all to try to refute others' arguments.

How practise I know if what they're citing is scholarly or not? Use some of the methods on other parts of this folio, like googling the journal title or book publisher of other works they're citing to see if they're scholarly publishers. If you lot're not sure how to find that info, ask a Librarian about how to read a commendation!

Is the text written in a fashion that a general audition could easily read and follow?

Why does this affair? Pop sources like newspapers and magazines are intended to exist read past a non-specialized audience (you tin can usually recognize this past simplified linguistic communication and middle-catching graphic design, equally in the example to the right. Sometimes popular sources summarize scholarly sources for a broader audience. Information technology's of import not to misfile a pop writeup of a scholarly source with the actual scholarly source.

Is the text identified or labeled every bit a letter of the alphabet to the editor, book review, commentary, opinion/editorial, and/or call for a proposal?

Why does this thing? These genres—letters to the editor, volume reviews, commentaries, or calls for proposals—are not scholarly sources.

Nonetheless, you might observe them in a scholarly publication. The example to the right is a book review, but it was published in Feminism & Psychology, a peer-reviewed periodical. Book reviews are normally labeled clearly, so lookout out for them!

Is the text identified or labeled as fiction?

Why does this matter? Fiction is not scholarship.

Nonetheless, scholars in certain disciplines study fiction and publish their work in scholarly journals. For case, a scholar of science fiction could use fictional texts as primary research, every bit in this case.

Does the text make claims with no documented support?

How practise I know? Locate places in the text where the author makes a claim or argument. Are those claims backed up with prove? Does the text refer to whatever source cloth? Is there a reference list at the stop of the text or references given in foot- or endnotes?

If not, that almost certainly ways your source is not scholarly.

Why is this of import? In scholarship, claims must be backed upwardly with evidence, which has to exist locatable. In other words, if you claim something, someone has to be able to find the evidence that backs upwards that claim, whether it's by looking through the research you yourself did or by referring to something y'all cited. If there's a claim and no testify, that usually means you're not looking at a scholarly source.

Is the text from a newspaper?

Why does this matter? Newspapers, while they do go through a fact-checking process that makes them reliable sources, are Non scholarly sources. They oasis't gone through the peer review process. Sometimes newspaper manufactures are written by scholars, then you lot're getting scholarly information, simply y'all're not getting peer-reviewed information.

When you're selecting sources to use in a project, you need to call back about the context and purpose of what you lot're writing, as well as your own understanding and comfort level with what you're researching. Does it make sense to use a paper commodity summarizing the findings of a peer-reviewed journal article, or should you go and discover the peer-reviewed article itself?

It'due south also important to consider how current you need your information to exist. Newspapers are expert sources for topics that are happening correct now, every bit in the example here.

Is the text from a textbook?

Why does this affair? It depends on the text and textbook whether that content is scholarly or non. Don't assume any textbook is scholarly, but don't assume it's non either. Again, expect at who wrote the textbook and who published it.

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Source: https://librarybestbets.fairfield.edu/scholarly

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