Research Guides: In Your Research Era: Taylor Swift in Bunch Library Resources: Dear Reader: Finding Peer Reviewed Articles

What is Peer Review?

What even is a peer reviewed article, anyways? Peer reviewed articles are....

Vetted by scholars in their field.	Good for finding specific information.	Sometimes called:
Before academic journals publish articles, they go through the process of peer review. This means that they're rigorously checked by peers (other scholars) in the field, oftentimes suggesting many revisions before they get published.	Peer-reviewed journal articles are a scholar's findings about a specific research question. If you want to find information about how Taylor Swift has affected local politics, then an academic article is a great choice. If you're looking for an overview of Taylor Swift's albums, a different kind of source might be more useful.	Academic articles Scholarly articles Refereed articles

OK, so now that you know what peer-reviewed articles are, how can you go about finding them?

Tips for Finding Peer Reviewed Articles

Search in library resources. Not everything on Google Scholar is a scholarly source! They just pull from academic repositories (which are sometimes peer-reviewed, and sometimes not).
Use a filter. OneSearch and Databases both have filters that allow you to narrow your results to just peer-reviewed articles.
Think like a scholar! If you're not finding much, try to think about how an academic might talk about whatever you're searching for.
Having trouble? Ask for help! Meet with a librarian or use our 24/7 chat service if you're having trouble finding articles. We're always here to help.

Academic Search Premier
contains indexing and abstracts for more than 8,500 journals, with full text for more than 4,600 of those titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.
JSTOR Arts & Sciences
JSTOR offers high-quality, interdisciplinary content to support scholarship and teaching. It includes leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. Journals are always included from volume 1, issue 1 and include previous and unrelated titles.
ScienceDirect
Science Direct is a leading full-text scientific database offering journal articles and book chapters from more than 3,900 peer-reviewed journals and more than 11,000 books. There are currently more than 9.5 million articles/chapters on subjects in the Health & Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social & Behavioral Sciences.