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POLS/INTS 480 Senior Seminar

Scholarly vs. Peer Reviewed

What is the difference between scholarly and peer reviewed?   

Scholarly: A publication is regarded as scholarly if it is authored by experts, for experts. The publication is academic in focus as it reports original research. Generally, scholarly journals are targeted for professional or academic researchers and provide detailed analysis concentrating on a single discipline or academic field. The publication will likely be refereed by external reviewers. The publisher is typically a professional association or an academic press.  

Peer Reviewed: Prior to publication, articles go through a rigorous assessment that involves review and approval by the author’s peers  who are experts in the same subject area. The peer review and evaluation system is utilized to safeguard the quality of scholarly content.  Remember, just because a journal is peer reviewed does not guarantee that all articles in it are included in the peer review process. Some article types, such as news items, editorials and book and article reviews, may not be peer reviewed. 

Peer Reviewed Limit in Search@UW

In Search@UW you can limit your search results to Peer-reviewed articles by checking the boxes next to the words "Peer-reviewed Journals" and "Articles" on the left-hand side of the screen after you do a preliminary search. 

A screenshot of Search@UW focused on the refine my results section 

Note: If you are searching in an individual database there is often an option to limit your search to only Peer-reviewed articles, as well.