Another place to find out if the journal is peer-reviewed is to use one of the online databases.

For example, if you know that articles from your journal appear in the Academic Search Complete database, you can search for the journal in the database and learn more about it.

Go to Academic Search Complete and click on Publications below the search boxes. Enter the name of the publication you're interested in.

Choose your journal, then see if it has a "peer reviewed" tag assigned.

Academic Search Premiere does not include all journals so the one you are looking for may not be listed here. You can also try searching for your journal in Wikipedia to see if the entry indicates if the journal is peer reviewed.

Peer reviewed articles are research articles that have been evaluated and approved by other experts in the field before being accepted for publication in a journal. They almost all follow a predictable pattern and contain the following elements:

1. AUTHOR:  The author is always listed with the credentials that identify the author's expertise, such as university or research affiliation.  The author often holds a Ph.D. in the subject area of the article. Contrast this to an author who writes on many different topics (like in a magazine or newspaper).

2. LANGUAGE:  The article language tends to be formal and technical, and is particular to the discipline in which it is written.  It is geared to other researchers in the same subject.  Contrast this with popular articles that are written at an informal and basic level for easy understanding by the general public.

3.  CONTENT:  There is an abstract at the beginning of the article which summarizes the content.  The articles almost always follow the pattern of having introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and bibliography sections. News articles, scientific letters and book reviews do not follow this pattern. 

4.  ORIGINAL DATA:  Original data will be presented in charts and graphs illustrating the results of experiments. Contrast this to a news feature, which pulls together results and ideas from other researchers' work.

Some research is sponsored by an institution, such as the U.S. government or a non-profit or private company. If the research project is sponsored by someone, you will want to investigate who that is and if that could impact how the research was done. For example, a pharmaceutical company that sponsors research on a particular medication may mean that the research is not entirely bias-free.

• Does the source have a bibliography? This can lead you to other sources.
• Is there an author listed as part of the citation? Judging authority can be difficult without an author.
• Is the journal refereed (peer reviewed)?
• How old is the source? Will this matter for your topic? Currency of information can be important. Some aspects of a topic may need currency more than others.
• What other terminology is being used either by the author or by the database? Keep an eye out for other words you can use in your search statements.
• Do the OSU Libraries own the journal (either in print or electronically)? If we don't own it, it will take more time to get your hands on the source.

Reading a scholarly journal article does not need to be daunting. Here are some suggestions:

• Read the abstract first. This should give you a complete overview of the article.
• Skim the article to get a sense of the sections and general contents.
• Read the abstract/introduction and then skip to the conclusion or discussion section. This will help you get an overall sense of the article and whether or not it is relevant to your research.
• Then read each section carefully.