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Research Guides

ENV 320H1S - National Environmental Policy

Locating peer-reviewed articles

Understanding Peer Review

Peer Review is:

  • The formal process by which researchers 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. 

 

Limit for Peer-Reviewed Articles

"Peer-reviewed Articles" is one of the filter options in LibrarySearch. Selecting this filter limits your search results to articles published in scholarly journals that use a peer-review editorial process. 

Results page with arrow pointing to peer-reviewed articles filter.



 

How this Filter Works

LibrarySearch is integrated with Ulrichsweb, a periodical index that includes the peer-review status of more than 300,000 journals. When you select this filter, LibrarySearch instantly narrows your results to those UlrichsWeb indicates are peer-reviewed. 

UlrichsWeb logo

 

Use UlrichWeb to check for Peer-Review Journals

Using Ulrich's Web

If you have found an article online and are unsure if it is has been peer-reviewed, the simplest way to determine if it has been is to use Ulrichsweb.  Ulrich's Web is a database that contains information on over 300,000 journals, magazines and newspapers.

Type the name of the journal you are investigating into the Ulrich database.  If the icon (highlighted in yellow) appears to the left of your journal, then you know the journal is a scholarly publication.

In the example shown below, both the online and print versions of Earth Sciences History are peer-reviewed, while Earth Sciences is not.

 

screen shot of Ulrich's Web table with Peer Review Icon (soccer jersey) highlighted

 

Learn more from UofT Libraries' Understanding Peer Review Guide