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Research Starters: Scholarly Articles & Peer Review

Research Starter workshops to help you search, find, evaluate and cite.

What are Scholarly Articles?

The purpose of scholarly articles is to inform and report on original research or experimentation to the scholarly community. Scholarly articles are one type of information source that can be helpful to use as evidence in academic papers, but keep in mind that other resources, including popular articles, may also be helpful to you, too. 

What to Look for in a Scholarly Article

Limit to Peer Reviewed Articles in the Library Databases

In Academic Search Complete & Other EBSCOhost Databases

Check the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals limiter to narrow results to peer-reviewed articles.

In PsycINFO & Other ProQuest Databases

Check the Peer reviewed limiter under the search box to narrow results to peer-reviewed articles. You can also combine this limiter with methodology limiters, such as those for original/empirical articles or review articles.

Peer Review in 3 Minutes (video tutorial)

North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries, 3:15

  1. What do peer reviewers do?  How are they similar to or different from editors?
  2. Who are the primary customers of scholarly journals?
  3. Do databases only include peer-reviewed articles?  How do you know?

Example: Scholarly Article

  • This article describes the results of a study (it has a methods section, a results section, & description of how the study was carried out, etc.)
  • There are lots of citations and references to other research
  • Charts and graphs illustrate the findings
  • The article was written by a researcher in this field

Example: Popular Article

  • The article tells a story (introducing us to particular people telling us about their lives, etc.)
  • Lack of academic jargon / few references
  • Does not describe a study; rather is telling us about a program
  • No assumption that we already know a large amount about this topic