Find Peer-Reviewed Articles

What is a Journal?

• Scholarly journals exist to share new and important knowledge within an academic discipline or professional field.
• Articles are written by experts (researchers, professors, practitioners).
• The audience is other experts in that discipline or field.
• Articles often report on original studies, experiments, or theoretical work.
• Journals look different from magazines: they focus on advancing knowledge, not on entertainment or general interest.

Here are a few examples: 

• Journal of the American Medical Association

• Journal of Social Work Practice

How can I identify a journal?

Look for these features:

• Author credentials: advanced degrees, academic or professional affiliations.

• Length and depth: often longer and more detailed than magazine or newspaper articles.

• Discipline-specific language: technical terms and concepts.

• References: extensive bibliographies citing other scholarly sources.

Where Does Peer Review Fit into the Picture?

Peer review is a quality-check process used by many scholarly journals.

• When an author submits an article, journal editors send it to other experts (“peers”) in the field.

• These reviewers evaluate the research’s quality, accuracy, and importance before it can be published.

• Peer-reviewed journals are sometimes called refereed journals.

Why it matters:

• Peer review helps ensure the article represents high-quality scholarship and contributes meaningfully to the field.

• Not all scholarly journals use peer review, but professors often require peer-reviewed sources because they’re among the most credible.

Because journal articles use specialized vocabulary and assume the reader has extensive background knowledge, they can be tough for non-experts to read. That's why it helps to build some foundational knowledge first. Do some preliminary reading in encyclopedias, magazines, newspapers, and websites to front-load your knowledge. That way you'll have the context and vocabulary you need to work through the articles. 

Watch this brief video to better understand the peer-review process.

The MJC Library subscribes to several databases providing access to peer-reviewed journals. Not only do these databases provide access to this type of material, but they allow you to limit your searches to retrieve only peer-reviewed content. Take a look at the videos on the left for step-by-step instructions on how to limit your searches on various databases.

Google Scholar is a vertical search engine indexing only a select portion of the web. It searches across many disciplines to find journal articles, books, theses & dissertations, court opinions, and content from academic publishers, professional societies, and a select academic web sites. 

Only some of the sources on Google Scholar are available in full-text format, though you can also connect Google Scholar to the MJC Library so it will identify those sources available through the our Library databases. To configure this, go to "hamburger menu" and choose Settings, then choose Library Links. You can link to the Modesto Junior College by typing it into the search box and selecting it. 

There is no way to limit to peer-reviewed journals (or even journals), but you can easily search publication titles to determine their status.

An MJC Librarian can help you access Google Scholar, add the MJC Library to the settings, conduct effective searches, and determine if the sources  you find are peer reviewed journal articles.