MGT2280: Accounting Theory & Research

Article databases aggregate and index articles from hundreds of journals. Many offer other content such as book chapters, working papers, or conference proceedings. 

Databases like the ones below offer filters and hyperlinking that allow you to find what you need faster. In many cases these databases allow you to filter for peer review.

Your professor may prefer you to use peer-reviewed articles for most or all of your literature review. 

Peer review is a process used by publishers of academic or scholarly journals. Articles submitted for publication are reviewed and evaluated by independent subject experts to ensure they meet certain standards of research and scholarship.

Peer reviewers provide feedback to the author(s) on one or more drafts of an article. If the article is then revised and resubmitted, it may be published. For top-ranked journals, the acceptance rate can be very low.

Why use peer-reviewed articles?

Peer review is a kind of quality control that helps ensure you are using credible, authoritative information for your assignment or project. 

How can you tell if an article is peer-reviewed?

Articles are typically peer-reviewed if the journal in which it is published is peer-reviewed. However, if the article is a commentary, opinion, editorial, or a book review, it will rarely be peer-reviewed.  

To see if a journal is peer-reviewed: 

1. Look up the journal in Ulrichsweb. Look for this symbol    besides the journal listing to see if it is refereed.
2. Check the journal's home page and look at the information provided under the 'About This Journal' or 'For Contributors/Authors' pages. If a journal is peer-reviewed or refereed, it will spell out the policy it uses. Look for references to a double-blind or single-blind review process, an editorial board and/or a list of editors, and in a few cases, an article acceptance rate.

Check this guide from University of Toronto Scarborough for more information on verifying peer review.

Working papers (sometimes known as preprints) are scholarly papers published without peer review. They are intended to share research results with fellow scholars and are often (but not always) intended for publication in a journal, following feedback and revision. 

Working papers can be useful if you are researching novel or emerging concepts or theories. Because of the lengthy scholarly journal publishing cycle, research on these topics may appear first as working papers. 

Working papers are often but not always available in full-text for free, either in an institutional  or networked repository or on an academic's personal website.

While not articles, doctoral-level dissertations and graduate-level theses can be useful sources. They are not peer-reviewed but are completed under the supervision of a faculty researcher and, in the case of dissertations, must be successfully defended before a committee of experts.

Use dissertations for topics for which there is little published research. And check with your professor - they may be more appropriate to use as a starting point for your research, rather than as a source for your literature review.