In academic publishing, articles are submitted for peer review before being published. Reviewers who are anonymous and who specialize in the same scholarly area as the author (i.e. peers) read articles for quality of research. Reviewers may make suggestions for revision or reject the work.
Authors of scholarly, peer-reviewed articles are experts in their field. Look for author affiliation. Authors of scholarly articles use technical language expecting that their readers are also scholars in the field of study.
Owen, P. J., & Lamon, S. (2021, August 9). Are cats good? An important study. Journal of Catological Sciences, 5(2),1. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/V48D7 Published on Twitter as a model of a scientific paper.
Some ways to identify peer-reviewed articles in the library databases
Example:
Start with some keywords in one of the library databases
Look over the results for additional terms that might be useful
Look for “Limit to” checkbox for Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
Look for an icon for Academic Journal used in some databases
Use library databases to identify peer-reviewed articles on your topic - and try Google Scholar. as one of the library databases. Google Scholar is a separate search engine from Google web search. Google Scholar indexes the full-text of many scholarly articles (and books). Not all of the results will be available online for free or as part of the HCC Libraries collection. See attached file for information on using Google Scholar as one of the library databases to spot articles we have licensed - and other articles that are available open access.
Keep a research log.
List databases used, search terms used, and the date you did your search. For the articles you find in each database:
List the author(s) names, year published, article title, journal name, volume, issue, page numbers; digital object identifier (DOI) or URL and the date that you read the article.
Jot down some thoughts about each article. How will the article help you write your paper? Tools that would work: A simple Word document, a Google Doc, a OneNote file - or notecards - or a sheet of notebook paper.
Keep copies of the articles you find on a flash drive or store online in OneNote, Google Drive.