Peer-reviewed journals

Peer-reviewed journals are considered the gold standard of academic publishing and contain high-quality content that you can use in your assessments.

"Peer review" is the process that articles go through before they are published. The article is first reviewed by a journal editor, then passed on to academics in the same field of study – the author’s peers – to assess its relevance, credibility, and value.

Only after this process can the article be approved for publication. This multi-step process means that peer-reviewed journals and articles are more useful sources of information for your assessments compared to non-peer-reviewed ones.

The video below gives a quick introduction to peer-reviewed journals.

How can you tell if an article is peer-reviewed?

The easiest way to tell if an article is peer-reviewed is to filter your search results. Torrens Library’s catalogue and our academic databases will have an option to filter your search results – once you’ve done your search, have a look at the left-hand navigation panel for this option.

Here’s what it looks like when you search Torrens Library’s catalogue:

Here’s what it looks like when searching the EBSCO database: