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Finding scholarly sources

This Guide will help you determine what scholarly, or peer-reviewed articles, look like and where and how to find them.

How to find scholarly articles in Databases

You can often find scholarly articles in the library's databases. Several of these databases have the option of restricting your search to these types of articles only. This option may have a name such as “peer reviewed” or “scholarly journals.”

  • A scholarly journal is one authored by academics for a specific audience, generally published by an organization with academic goals and missions.
  • A peer-reviewed article goes through an official editorial process that includes review and approval by the author's peers in the same subject area.

Either of these choices will limit your database search to scholarly articles.

How do you know if a journal is peer reviewed? 

Some databases will let you check a box to limit to peer reviewed articles. Also, look at the journal's website which will explain the editorial process including whether or not the journal is peer reviewed.