What are Peer-Reviewed Articles?
Peer-reviewed articles are articles that have undergone a rigorous review process. An author submits a manuscript to a journal. Journal reviewers, which are professionals and experts in the same field, evaluate the manuscript and determine whether or not the manuscript’s ideas, procedures, and content are worthy of publication on the basis of accuracy, validity, and rigor. Thus, the author’s peers review and evaluate the value that a manuscript may have on that discipline. In this way, a peer-reviewed article can represent the best research practices in the academic field. Academic journal articles are considered scholarly sources, but not all academic journals are also peer reviewed (a.k.a. refereed).
Look for these elements in a peer-reviewed article:
- Author's credentials and/or organization affiliation
- An abstract that summarizes the paper's content
- Information on the research methodology (i.e., how was the research performed)
- Results of the study and the author's conclusions
- Footnotes or in-text references to other sources that were used to support this research
- A bibliography
Best Databases for Peer-Reviewed Resources in Food Science
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Food Science Source This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to over 1,300 publications focused on all aspects of the food industry, including packaging, processing, product development, safety, and more. The database also includes more than 1,000 food industry and market reports.
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ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles and ebooks in science, technology and medicine (STM), arts, humanities and social sciences. Click on "Journals and Books" link on the website to filter by subscribed, open access and complimentary access to know what is available to you. Note: You may see a screen from Elsevier asking: “Are you a Human”. It's okay to click on the box. It's a verification process to prevent automated traffic (BOTS) from abusing excessive downloads of PDFs.
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CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
1300+ full-text journals available to support nursing and allied health professionals, students, educators and researchers. This resource also provides access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, evidence-based care sheet and quick lesson disease overviews, and continuing education modules.
Ensuring the Journal is Peer-Reviewed
Ulrich’s Periodicals is another resource that you can use to determine if a journal is peer-reviewed.
Simply type in the name of the journal and look for the 