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ENGL 165 Wiley

Peer-Reviewed Articles Presentations

Finding peer-reviewed, academic, scholarly articles in databases

It's not hard to get on a computer and find material on any topic using Google. Finding articles in databases that meet your instructor's requirements takes more skill and evaluation, not to mention time.

Many papers you'll write in college require "peer-reviewed articles." The "peers" reviewing these articles are experts in the same field as the author; for instance, physics professors will review a physics professor's article.

Who are the peers in 'peer review'?

A professor or other expert submits their article to the editor of a journal in their field. For instance, a psychology professor might submit an article to the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. A physicist would submit a paper to  Applied Physics journalThe editors of these academic journals then ask  the authors' peers - other professors or experts in this field - to evaluate the submitted articles. Those experts then submit their comments and reviews back to the editor, who returns them to the author, who answers the criticisms and rewrites portions of the article to satisfy his "peer" reviewers.

This lengthy review process explains why peer-reviewed journals - also known as scholarly or academic journals - publish only two or four times a year.

Your instructors want to know you can find peer-reviewed articles. This means using limiters to narrow your search results in databases to find these articles.

Librarians can help you with this.