Peer-Review Week, what is it?

For all the scholars out there Monday 28th September to Friday 2nd October is Peer-Review Week. What does this mean?

You may have heard your lecturer use the term “peer reviewed”, “refereed” or “scholarly” when they’re talking about journal articles, but what does this actually mean, and why is it important for your studies?

When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, it is reviewed by scholars (peers) in that field of research. This review process determines if the article is appropriate for publication. That’s all very well, but why go through this process? Why not just publish an article that the author(s) have obviously spent a lot of time on? The point of the peer review process, is to weed out articles that are either not important for that field of research or are not of sufficient quality to be included for publication.

Why is this important for your studies? If you include peer reviewed articles in the research for your assessments, you are indicating to your lecturer that you know how and where to find quality and relevant information.

Now you know the what and the why, what about the how? Sometimes it can be difficult to look at a journal article and know if it is peer reviewed, the Library has a tool that can help.

Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory (Ulrichs) is a database that lists information about most of the journals published throughout the world. Ulrichs will give you information about the journal in which your article is published, so you need to search the database for the Journal title, not the article title. When you find the journal in Ulrichs, you’ll know if it is a peer reviewed article when a referee’s jersey is displayed next to the title. In the example below, the first two journals are peer reviewed.