Not all journal articles are peer-reviewed because not all journals are peer-reviewed.

Articles in peer-reviewed journals are reviewed by a group of the writer's peers (other academics in their field) before the articles are published.

It might sound confusing, but you know that an article is peer-reviewed if it comes from a peer-reviewed journal.

You can find out if a journal (and its articles) is peer-reviewed by searching for the journal title in Ulrich's, as described in the box to the right.

Ulrich's periodical directory is a tool that allows you to check if the journal in which an article is published is peer-reviewed.  This is important as your instructors will often insist that you use peer-reviewed journals.

Peer-reviewed journals are reviewed by a committee of peers (other researchers in the field). Content is approved by the committee before it is published.

How do you know if the articles in a journal are peer-reviewed? Check Ulrich's.

Some databases allow you to limit to peer-reviewed articles. For other databases, you need to look up the title of the journal in Ulrich's.

1. Go to Ulrich's:  Click to open Ulrich's.

2. Type the JOURNAL TITLE (not the article title) into the search box, and click the green search button.

3. In the search results, look for a referee jersey icon to indicate that a journal is refereed, which is a synonym for peer-reviewed.

4. Or you can click on a journal to see the full record. If it says Refereed Yes, then you know the journal (and the articles published in it) are refereed/peer-reviewed.

 5. The Journal of Infectious Diseases IS peer reviewed.