Anthropology 

Throughout your course, lecturers will ask you to use particular types of journals for your assignment research.  Some instructions you might hear include:

Definition of Peer Review  "The review of an article or other publication by a group of experts on the topic. Used by scholarly publications as a way of determining whether an article should be accepted for publication."

What are Peer Reviewed journals?

• Peer reviewed journals are also known as Scholarly, Academic or Refereed journals
• They contain articles written by and for scholars and researchers in the field
• Their main purpose is reporting of original research or experimentation
• They are usually published by a professional organisation
• They always cite sources, using footnotes and/or bibliographies
• They use terminology and jargon specific to the field
• Lists the Editorial Board, or Peer Review Panel
• They include information on how to format and submit papers is clearly stated
• They often include details of where the journal is indexed, eg. JStor, Historical Abstracts

If searching in a library database

• Check to see if there is a box on the database search page that allows you to limit your search results to  Refereed/Peer Reviewed journal articles. 

If wanting to check specific journal titles/articles here are some options:

• Look at the article itself for a header or similar which indicates refereed or reviewed.

• Look at the table of contents of the journal. Often items are grouped under a heading like "reviewed articles".

• Check the journal's website to see if a statement is made about the content being Peer Reviewed or Refereed. Although be aware that not all the contents of a refereed journal will be refereed (e.g. books reviews, practice, commentaries, editorials).

• Go to Ulrichsweb.com, under "Quick Search" drop to "Title (keyword)" and type in the journal title. Next to journal titles which include at least some refereed content is the image of a college shirt. Also you can click on the journal title and you will see down the page "Refereed - yes or no".

For further information on  how to search for or identify peer reviewed journal articles - go to Identifying peer reviewed articles.

Watch a short video (1.45 min) created by Cornell University for their series Research Minutes

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