Research Guides: ANTH 500D: Peoples and Cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa: Scholarly v. Popular

What are peer-reviewed journals?

Peer review of articles helps ensure high quality in scholarly publishing.

Submitted articles are reviewed by other scholars in the field (peers) for relevance and contribution to the field, appropriateness of methodology, quality of discussion, etc.

These journals are also known as Referred journals.

Examples of peer-reviewed journals would be:

Journal of Popular Culture

Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law

Sociology of Sport Journal

Bowling Green State University
More detail can be found in this guide.
North Carolina State University
Identifies differences among articles from popular, scholarly, and trade publications.

Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals

An informative 3-minute video created by Peabody Library, Vanderbilt University.

Peer Review?

Check:

the database record for the article, which sometimes indicates whether a journal uses peer review
the journal website, especially under About Us or Information for Authors (Example)

Ulrichsweb This link opens in a new window
Bibliographic and access information for thosands of serials. Entries provide ISSN, publisher, language, subject, abstracting & indexing coverage, full-text database coverage, tables of contents, and reviews written by librarians.

Note: Not everything in a journal is peer reviewed; letters to the editor, book reviews, news items, and other short works without listed references are typically not peer reviewed the way more substantive articles are.