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Research Methods

Finding and Citing Peer Review

First you have to find an article on your topic. Go to a database (see the Find Articles tab for help) and start searching. If you are having trouble finding what you want, review the Search Strategy and Advanced Search Strategy tabs. If you're still having trouble, contact me or the librarians (contact information on the Home and Stuck tabs). 

  • Pick a database, for example Academic Search Ultimate. Do a search in a database – based on your field of study. Example search: chocolate chip cookies in database Academic Search Ultimate. 
  • Then select the “Peer Reviewed” button just beneath the search bar.
  • Review the results.
  • Using the “Teaching Quality Control with Chocolate Chip Cookies” result, click on the blue title to view the item record 

screenshot of EBSCOhost database

You hit "peer reviewed" as a filter, but is what you found actually peer reviewed? Let's check.

  • Go to the Library’s Databases page and click on U. Go to Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory. 
  • Use the ISSN number (eight digits, field at the bottom of the item record) or journal title (from the Source line near the top of the item record) in the Ulrich’s search bar.
  • NOTE: The images below are the Ulrich's homepage and the results from the search of the ISSN.

 

Screenshot of Ulrich's search bar

  • Look at the results in Ulrich’s. If the second column has a referee shirt, the journal is peer reviewed and you can use the article.  Refereed is a synonym for peer reviewed. 
  • Take a screenshot of Ulrich’s to show its peer reviewed and put it in the document where you will put your citations. You can use the “snipping tool” or “snip and sketch” depending on your version of Windows, if you have Windows Vista, 7, 8.1, or 10. Search for “snip” in the Windows search bar. 
    1. For written instructions on using the tool go here or watch this video and start watching around minute 1.
    2. If you have don't have Windows you can download something like Gyazo which will allow you to take screenshots easily.

Screenshot of Ulrich's search results

 

Now that you know if your article is or is not peer reviewed, you can decide if you want to use it for your project. If you do want to use it, you'll need to cite it.

  • In your item record, now that you know you can use the article, click on the quotation marks icon to get basic citations. Scroll to the citation style you want and copy it. Here, we are using APA.

 

  • Paste the citation into a Word/Google Doc/etc.
    • You can also use a service like Mendeley or Zotero to keep track of all your citations - check out the Citations tab and "Bibliographic Management Tools"

 

Now, repeat this as many times as necessary until you have collected all your citations. Again, we are using APA for this example.

You will have something like this to turn in (if you are citing an article and proving it is peer reviewed): 

Sample citation

Now you must check the citation you got from the database against the Purdue OWL guide for your citation style (MLA, ALA, or Chicago) – links are in the Citations tab – to ensure correct citations and formatting. Do you see the errors with this APA citation? There are three big ones. 

​Final product should look something like this (yours will not say SAMPLE):

Example finished citation

Infographic

Find and Cite Peer Review Articles: The Basics

An infographic laying out the steps and basic instructions to complete the assignment to gather three citations for a peer reviewed articles.