Peer Review is a critical part of evaluating information. It is a process that journals use to ensure the articles they publish represent the best scholarship currently available, and articles from peer reviewed journal are often grounded in empirical research. When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, the editors send it out to other scholars in the same field (the author's peers) to get their opinion on the quality of the scholarship, its relevance to the field, its appropriateness for the journal, etc. Sometimes, you'll see this referred to as "refereed."
Publications that don't use peer review (Time, Cosmo, Salon) rely on an editor to determine the value of an article. Their goal is mainly to educate or entertain the general public, not to support scholarly research.
Some of the library’s databases will allow you to limit your search to scholarly journals. When you enter your search term(s), you can check the Peer Reviewed boxes and run your search with confidence that results will be from peer reviewed journals. The image below is from an EBSCO database, CINAHL.
KEEP IN MIND THAT PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS ALSO CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS NOT PEER REVIEWED -- book reviews, letters to the editor, short commentary and editorial commentary are not peer reviewed.
You can access Ulrich's Web to see if a particular journal is peer reviewed. (highlighted stars mean that those titles are peer reviewed).
If you are unsure, please reach out to your Librarian and we will assist you.
Interfaces and search options vary across databases, but best practices for searching are relatively consistent across interfaces. No matter which database you choose, remember these important tips...
1) Don't search wth your topic as a single phrase! Determine the key concepts of your topic. Then place each concept in its own search bar. For example...
2) Use ORs to string together synonyms or related terms for core concepts...
3) Use truncation, when appropriate. Adding an * to the end of a word will catch all forms of that word. For example, teach* will return teach, teachers, teaching, etc.
4) Look for the "peer reviewed" limit in each database. You can set this limit on the main search screen (before you search) or narrow your results after you've started your search. Typically, this option is available in the Advanced Search settings.
5) Set Date and Full Text limits as appropriate for your topic..
Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style Free Tutorial from the American Psychological Association
Purdue OWL APA Formatting and Style
Think of scholarly papers like a conversation. A paper takes a look at what people are saying on a particular topic and then adds something new to the conversation based on their own research. A literature review is how scholars get caught up on the conversation so they will know what to say or ask next.
A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis.
A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates.
A literature review is a critical summary of what the scientific literature says about your specific topic or question. Often student research in APA fields falls into this category. Your professor might ask you to write this kind of paper to demonstrate your familiarity with work in the field pertinent to the research you hope to conduct.
While the APA Publication Manual does not require a specific order for a literature review, a good literature review typically contains the following components:
Some instructors may also want you to write an abstract for a literature review, so be sure to check with them when given an assignment. Also, the length of a literature review and the required number of sources will vary based on course and instructor preferences.
NOTE: A literature review and an annotated bibliography are not synonymous. While both types of writing involve examining sources, the literature review seeks to synthesize the information and draw connections between sources. If you are asked to write an annotated bibliography, you should consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association for the APA Format for Annotated Bibliographies.