Why Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Journal Articles Are More Authoritative

Determining what sources are reliable can be challenging. Peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles
are the gold standard in academic research. Reputable academic journals have a rigorous peer-
review process.

The peer review process provides accountability to the academic community, as well as to the
content of the article. The peer review process involves qualified experts in a specific (often very
specific) field performing a review of an article's methods and findings to determine things like
quality and credibility.

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in peer-reviewed article databases and research databases, and
if you know that a database of journals is reliable, that can offer reassurances about the reliability of
a free article. Peer review is often double blind, meaning that the author removes all identifying
information and, likewise, does not know the identity of the reviewers. This helps reviewers
maintain objectivity and impartiality so as to judge an article based on its merit.

Where to Find Peer-Reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in a variety of research databases. Below is a list of some of the
major databases you can use to find peer-reviewed articles and other sources in disciplines
spanning the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

What Are Open Access Journals?

An open access (OA) journal is a journal whose content can be accessed without payment. This
provides scholars, students, and researchers with free journal articles. OA journals use alternate
methods of funding to cover publication costs so that articles can be published without having to
pass those publication costs on to the reader.
Some of these funding models include standard funding methods like advertising, public funding,
and author payment models, where the author pays a fee in order to publish in the journal. There
are OA journals that have non-peer-reviewed academic content, as well as journals that focus on
dissertations, theses, and papers from conferences, but the main focus of OA is peer-reviewed
scholarly journal articles.

The internet has certainly made it easier to access research articles and other scholarly publications
without needing access to a university library, and OA takes another step in that direction by
removing financial barriers to academic content.

Choosing Wisely

Features of Legitimate OA Journals

 There are things to look out for when trying to decide if a free publication journal is legitimate:

1. Mission statement—The mission statement for an OA journal should be available on their

website.

2. Publication history—Is the journal well established? How long has it been available?

3. Editorial board—Who are the members of the editorial board, and what are their
credentials?

4. Indexing—Can the journal be found in a reliable database?

5. Peer review—What is the peer review process? Does the journal allow enough time in the
process for a reliable assessment of quality?

6. Impact factor—What is the average number of times the journal is cited over a two-year
period?

Features of Illegitimate OA Journals

There are predatory publications that take advantage of the OA format, and they are something to
be wary of. Here are some things to look out for:

1. Contact information—Is contact information provided? Can it be verified?

2. Turnaround—If the journal makes dubious claims about the amount of time from
submission to publication, it is likely unreliable.

3. Editorial board—Much like determining legitimacy, looking at the editorial board and their
credentials can help determine illegitimacy.

4. Indexing—Can the journal be found in any scholarly databases?

5. Peer review—Is there a statement about the peer review process? Does it fit what you know
about peer review?

How to Find Scholarly Articles

Identify Keywords

Keywords are included in an article by the author. Keywords are an excellent way to find content
relevant to your research topic or area of interest. In academic searches, much like you would on a
search engine, you can use keywords to navigate through what is available to find exactly what
you're looking for.

Authors provide keywords that will help you easily find their article when researching a related topic,
often including general terms to accommodate broader searches, as well as some more specific
terms for those with a narrower scope. Keywords can be used individually or in combination to
refine your scholarly article search.

Narrow Down Results

Sometimes, search results can be overwhelming, and searching for free articles on a journal
database is no exception, but there are multiple ways to narrow down your results. A good place to
start is discipline.

What category does your topic fall into (psychology, architecture, machine learning, etc.)? You can
also narrow down your search with a year range if you're looking for articles that are more recent.

A Boolean search can be incredibly helpful. This entails including terms like AND