Westmoreland County Community College Library: LIBRARY: What are Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed Journals and other types of sources?

Learn about the differences between eBooks, reference sources, academic journals, magazines & periodicals, trade publications, and reports.

Source Types

Scholarly Publications

A study is submitted to a journal, then reviewed by a managing editor and sent to a panel of experts
Experts check its originality, significance, methodology and accuracy
They either accept, accept with minor revisions, accept with major revisions, or reject
If not rejected, the author makes adjustments until the experts are satisfied

Open: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other's identities
Closed or Blind: Authors are not aware of who is reviewing their work. Reviewers ARE aware of the author's identity
Double-Blind: Neither the author nor the reviewers are aware of each other's identity, resulting in less bias

Choose the "Peer Reviewed" filter under the searchbox to limit your search to only peer reviewed articles.

Here is an example from the results list:

	POPULAR (sometimes called Periodical)	SCHOLARLY (sometimes called Academic Journal)
TYPE	Magazine, Newspaper	Journal
AUTHOR	Journalist, Reporter, Writer	Scholar, Expert, Researcher, Scientist
AUDIENCE	General Public, Everyone	Scholar, Expert, Researcher, Scientist, College Student, Graduate Student
ARTICLE LENGTH	Short: 1-5 pages	Long: 10 pages or more
FREQUENCY	Daily, Weekly, Monthly	Per Year: Annual (1), Semi-Annual (2), Quarterly (4), Monthly (10-12)
APPROVAL PROCESS: Who approves a manuscript before it is actually published?	Editor or a few Editors	Peers or Referees; other Scholars, Experts, Researchers, Scientists who serve as readers to review manuscripts before they are accepted for publication; journals doing this are called Peer-Reviewed or Refereed journals
READING LEVEL	Common Language, Everyday Language; 6^th to 8^th Grade Reading Level	Higher level reading; Detail oriented, with language which is sophisticated, specialized, technical
SUPPORTING MATERIALS	Pictures, Illustrations	Footnotes, endnotes, bibliography or works cited list, additional readings, charts, graphs, tables
ACCESSIBILITY	Easy to access at Deli, Grocery Store, Supermarket	Purchase at bookstore, e.g. Barnes & Noble; Academic or Research Library, sometimes Public Library
EXAMPLES	People, Time	Journal of the American Dental Association