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COMM 2010: Communication Theory

Peer Reviewed or Scholarly FAQ

What are scholarly or peer reviewed articles? Professors often require students to find scholarly and peer reviewed articles. These items:

  • generally focus on scholarly research
  • are written by experts in the field or discipline
  • are critically reviewed  by other experts before publication
  • contain cited references to the information sources used

How do I find scholarly or peer reviewed articles?

Many of the library's databases contain scholarly or peer reviewed material and allow you to limit your search to include only these articles in the results. Use the advanced search feature in a database to find the option to limit to this type of search.

How do I know if an article is scholarly?

You will see "peer reviewed" or "academic journal" labels in your search results in EBSCO databases to indicate that the item was published in an academic journal. However, there are several types of articles that can be published in academic journals, and not all of them will be suitable for your assignment. Thus, you will still need to examine each article to be sure that it meets the requirements of your assignment and is relevant to your research question. If you are unsure, ask your instructor for clarification.

The handout below provides descriptions of the different types of articles published in academic journals.

Using Databases to Find Scholarly Articles

Databases are collections of scholarly articles or other resources. They are usually subject-specific, like Communication & Mass Media Complete, the premier database for all communication research. Alternatively, it has become more popular to search multiple databases at once using a generic EBSCO or Summon search. The advantages of this approach are that it's easy to get started and the number of search results is increased because of the interdisciplinary approach. The downside is if you want to ensure that your results are relevant to your area/discipline of study.  

Usually, you want to start with a database when you are searching for a topic. If you are interested in browsing research to get ideas for topics or to just learn new developments in the field, you should start with the journals tab of this guide. Also, start with journals if you already have a citation for a specific article.