VIC164: Ideas & their Consequences: Literary & Artistic Realms of the Imagination

This short video explain the terms scholarly/academic and peer-reviewed (or refereed)  and how to identify whether a book would be considered "scholarly.

Journal Articles:

If you found a journal article via a list of works cited, a reference on the internet at large or via Google Scholar, it may not be clear whether the article is from a peer-reviewed journal.
You can use the directory below (Ulrich's Web) to check whether the journal the article is published in is a peer-reviewed journal or not.

You can also enter the title of the article into LibrarySearch and if turns up there, if it's from a peer-reviewed journal, it should have a "peer-reviewed" label indicating this.

Please keep in mind:

• Many scholarly journals do not display a "peer-reviewed" label and guarantee, but are still reliable. There is typically an editorial review process, but it may differ from the established and methodical  "peer-review process". 
• Be thorough; when it's unclear, navigate to the journal publisher's webpage (sometimes a this is a university or research institute within a university), look for information such as an "about this journal" page.
• On articles, look for the academic credentials of the authors in the header, footer or at the end of the article (or hyperlinked). You can also web search the author(s)' names. 
• Check also that article authors, in turn, have cited their (scholarly) sources for the article.

NOTE: The "peer review" limiter in LibrarySearch and other databases though only applies to journal articles because it's a tracked and tagged feature and that's not a standardized (metadata) label for books.

Books and Chapters from Books:

The majority of the non-fiction books in the E.J. Pratt and all of the University of Toronto Libraries tend to be "scholarly publications". Books and chapters in anthologies would be subject to a form of "peer review" by an editorial committee, which is typically made up of fellow academics in the same field or in broader or related subject areas/disciplines. For an edited collection of essays or "papers", look for the section called "Contributors" for short descriptions of the contributing authors' credentials or expertise. Sometimes this information is at the start or end of each piece (chapter, essay etc.)

Other sources (open access publications, web pages):

If your assignment requires "scholarly" sources, it needs to be authored by someone who has studied and has academic credentials in the broader subject area.

When in doubt, ask your instructor or TA about a source that does not explicitly have characteristics of a cited source (writing or a communication that cites its sources and to be considered scholarly, typically the authors have a PhD or advanced degree in a related field, or are listed as Professors or Lecturers at a related department at a postsecondary institution).