POLB81: Introduction to International Relations

Peer review is....

• the process by which scholars critically appraise each other's work to ensure a high level of scholarship in a journal and to improve the quality and readability of a manuscript. 
• applied to both primary articles (i.e. articles which present findings from original research) and review articles that summarize primary research. 

Note:    'Peer reviewed' and 'refereed' are synonyms.

From Understanding Peer Review

How do you know if an article is from a peer-reviewed journal? Some databases allow you to limit your search to peer-reviewed journals. For other databases, you need to look up the title of the journal in Ulrich's Directory.

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.   Look for the JOURNAL TITLE in your search results.

3. In the search results, look for a referee jersey icon to indicate that a journal is refereed. Refereed means the same as peer reviewed.

4. The Journal of Infectious Diseases IS peer reviewed.  

REMEMBER:   It's the JOURNAL that's peer reviewed/refereed, so you are looking for the JOURNAL TITLE in your search results, NOT the article title.