What is Peer Review?

A peer-reviewed journal can be recognized by the following characteristics:

1. It is concerned with academic study.
2. The articles contain bibliographies of cited and related works.
3. The articles are written and reviewed by experts in the field.
4. The author's credentials and institutional affiliation are included.
5. Often an abstract of the article is included at the beginning of the article.
6. The articles report on original research, or reviews and evaluates material that has already been published, or expands and refines a theory.
7. The journal is published by a professional association, society, research association, or academic institution.

Some of the databases, such as Ebscohost's Academic Search Complete, have a check box one can select to search only peer-reviewed journals.

While the contents of other databases, such as Jstor and ScienceDirect, are completely peer-reviewed.