Skip to Main Content

Visual Communication Technology: Scholarly and Peer Review

Popular vs. Scholarly

Parts of a scholarly journal article

This video is from Bowman Library at Menlo College.

Is It a Scholarly Journal?

Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory: Entries include information about whether the journal or magazine is a scholarly journal, consumer magazine, etc.

Instructions to Authors in the Health Sciences.  This database of author instructions for more than 3,500 periodicals will frequently say if the periodical is peer-reviewed. 

Paper journals: Frequently include instruction for authors in the front or back of the journal.  Some instructions will use the phrase "peer reviewed."  Others will say that manuscripts are sent for blind review, reviewed by a committee, or anonymously reviewed.

Research Databases:  Some allow you to limit your search to scholarly journals.  CINAHL allows you to limit your search to peer reviewed journals and indicates that an article is peer reviewed in the Journal Subset field when appropriate.  MEDLINE has indexed only scholarly journals since 1975.