Instructors often ask students to find “scholarly”, “academic”, or “peer reviewed” sources of information for their research. These terms all refer to the same type of information – sources based on in-depth research, and are considered higher in quality and more reliable for your research. These sources can range from chapters within books or entire books, or journal articles, but all have common characteristics that can help you recognize that type of information.
While all Peer Reviewed writing is Scholary in nature, not all Scholarly writing is Peer Reviewed.
Peer reviewed sources are scholarly articles and books that have undergone an additional evaluation process in which editors, peer reviewers and other expert scholars critically assess the quality and scientific merit of the article/book and its research before it can be published. The reviewers are selected because they are experts on the knowledge and research in their field and their thorough readings and critical reviews help verify that the research is valid and the researcher’s conclusions are not only sound but also important. Because of this extra evaluation of the research, peer reviewed (also called refereed sources) sources are considered the gold standard for research and dissertation level literature reviews.
While you might use other scholarly sources in your research, you will find that peer reviewed information sources are what your advisor and dissertation committee want you to rely on the most. How can you tell if an online journal or article is from a peer reviewed source?
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