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Peer-review is a scholarly process in which subject matter experts critically evaluate a proposed book or article prior to publication. A peer-reviewed journal requires that its articles go through this process. The peer-reviewers, sometimes called referees, detrmine if the subject of the article falls within the scope of the publication and assess the originality, quality of the research, and clarity of presentation. They may suggest changes to the author before an article is finally accepted for publication.

Unfortunately, the articles themselves will not state explicitly if they are pee-reviewed or not, but there are several ways to determine if an article is peer-reviewed. Here are a few:

• Google and visit the website of the article's journal. Most journals publicly provide submission instructions for prospective authors which will indicate if their research must be peer-reviewed prior to publication. For example, here is author submission information for the journal Nature, which details its peer-review process.
• Look up the journal in Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. Peer-reviewed journals have a referee icon next to the journal title to indicate that they are peer-reviewed.

• Use a database filter. Library Search (see illustration below) and many of our databases feature a "Scholarly or Peer-reviewed" filter to help limit results to articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Sometimes some non-peer-reviewed results will show up anyway, such as book reviews, so double-check your sources using one of the other methods above.