What is a peer-reviewed article?

Peer review describes the process that an article goes through before it can be published in a scholarly or academic journal. Peer-reviewed articles are also referred to as academic, scholarly, or refereed articles.

1. An academic or expert writes an article whose intended audience is other academics, experts, or students.
2. The article is then submitted for review to the editors of an academic journal
   • Example: Editors of Social Science Quarterly
3. Editors review the article
   • Options: Acceptance, Return with Suggestions, Reject
   • Example: Social Science Quarterly accepts about 15% of submissions.

For more information on what it means to be peer-reviewed, check out our Research 101 Guide. This guide can also be found on the library homepage under the Research Guides tab.

Finding peer-reviewed articles

1. You can find articles (in magazines, newspapers, scholarly or peer-reviewed journals) from the SuperSearch Tab on the library website. Here you can enter keywords that will search both our KSU library catalog (books, e-books, government documents, films, etc.) and many of the subscription databases all in one search engine.
2. Once you conduct your search, you can limit the results to scholarly or peer-reviewed publications only by clicking the button on the left side of the screen that reads "Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Journals." 

What is a scholarly source?

Scholarly sources are texts that are written for academics. They are aimed at the following:

• an audience of academics
• experts
• college students

They are not intended for a general audience like magazines or newspapers.

Scholarly articles are not necessarily peer reviewed, but peer-reviewed articles are always scholarly.

Popular articles

Unlike scholarly articles, popular articles typically are not written or reviewed by experts. They are written by professional writers or journalists for a general audience. They are usually published in magazines or newspapers.