Biology Research Articles: Peer-reviewed journal articles

The journals we refer to as "peer-reviewed journals" include some items that are not peer-reviewed, such as editorials, columns, news, etc. Only the scholarly or research articles are submitted for peer review.

Peer review is described in the Oxford English Dictionary Online as:

"The process by which an academic journal passes a paper submitted for publication to independent experts for comments on its suitability and worth; refereeing."

Because peer-reviewed journal articles have been reviewed and edited before publication, they are considered a highly credible source of information.

Use appropriate journal databases to increase your access to peer-reviewed journals:

• Biological & Agricultural Index Plus
• Biological Sciences Database
• PubMed

These databases index the scientific literature, and cover most of the highly regarded life sciences journals.  The majority of these journals are peer-reviewed.

There are several ways to check whether a journal uses peer review:

• In some databases, you are able to limit your search to articles published in peer-reviewed journals.
• Some of the fulltext databases provide a link to the journal homepage, where you can check the information provided by the publisher to ascertain if the journal is peer reviewed. (This will be under a heading like "About This Journal.")
• Print copies of journals will sometimes state if the journal is peer reviewed/refereed (e.g., under journal details or information for contributors).