Skip to Main Content

HST 353 - Kentucky History: for Benjamin Fitzpatrick's students

Relevant Encyclopedias

Databases

Peer Review

What is Peer Review?

It is the quality control system for scholarship.  It means that articles in a peer-reviewed journal must be scrutinized by experts before they are published.  SYNONYMS = 'academic', 'juried', 'refereed', 'scholarly'.

How can you tell when something is peer-reviewed?

1) When you are looking at a print copy, of an entire issue of a journal, the editorial board of scholars with academic credentials and institutional affiliations will be listed somewhere.  These are the 'peers' that review each published article.

2) Use a check box limit in your database search (when available).