Several resources are available to help CSUCI library users identify peer-reviewed articles. Many of the journals indexed in specialized databases are scholarly but those databases do not tell you whether a journal is peer reviewed or not. To find out if a journal is peer reviewed, ask at the Reference Desk for Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory. Volume 5 of Ulrich’s has a list of “Refereed Serials.” While this list is not exhaustive, it is the most complete list available. If you cannot find the publication listed in Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory, you should go the the publication’s website. Often times you can determine if a journal is peer-reviewed by looking at their submission process on their website.
Scholarly journals contain articles written by, and addressed to, experts in a discipline. Scholarly journals present the research of experts in a field, although these journals also often carry opinion pieces or even advertisements unique to the field addressed by the journal. Publication cycles vary for scholarly journals, ranging from yearly to monthly but most frequently they are published bimonthly (every other month) or quarterly.
Peer-reviewed journals (also called refereed or juried journals) send submitted articles to one or more experts for review before deciding to publish them. This review process helps ensure that published articles reflect solid scholarship in a field. Most often, the experts reviewing an article make critical comments on the text, comments that the author must incorporate into the article before its publication.