What's a peer reviewed, primary article?

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."

Primary sources --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 sources --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 sources --non-peer reviewed articles, books, newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, etc.. 

Watch this tutorial to understand what peer review is and how to determine if a journal is peer reviewed. 

Want to know if a journal is peer reviewed?

Enter the title into the directory below.

This icon    will be found next to all peer reviewed journals.