Subject Guides: Chemistry and Biochemistry: Evaluation and Peer Review

Subject Guide

Contact:

2313 HBLL
Provo, UT 84606
(801) 422-9066
greg_nelson@byu.edu

Subjects: Engineering & Technology, Life Sciences, Physical & Mathematical Sciences

Definitions

Primary resources --peer reviewed articles written by authors who actually performed an original experiment or are reporting their field observations, i.e., of organisms or medical patients.

Secondary resources --peer reviewed articles written by authors who summarize or discuss trends in the primary literature. In the life sciences, these are called "review" articles or "reviews."

Tertiary resources --non-peer reviewed articles, books, newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, etc..

Peer review--process by which articles are submitted to experts in the scientific discipline for comments and criticism before publication in a scholarly journal. Peer reviewed journals are also called "refereed."

Citation Data

Citation data is a numerical tool for evaluation of individual articles. In general, the more an article is cited in the reference lists of other articles, the more impact the article has had on the scientific community. Look for the "Times Cited" information under each article in Web of Science. Sort your results by "Times Cited" using the drop down menu at the top right to get a feel for the most important papers on your topic.

Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Systematic downloading, redistribution to non-subscribers, and any commercial use expressly prohibited.
Scopus (Elsevier) This link opens in a new window Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research. By logging into Google Scholar from off-campus, the library holdings will be integrated into your search results allowing you to quickly find the full-text of scholarly materials.

Information About Journals

Journal Citation Reports This link opens in a new window Includes impact factors and other statistical measures for over 7,000 journals in science and the social sciences.
Ulrichsweb This link opens in a new window Includes information of all kinds about periodical publications. On the journal page, look for the "refereed" line. If it says yes, then the journal is peer reviewed.