Peer review is the process of reviewing journal article submissions by experts in the field prior to publication. It happens at the journal level, so all articles submitted to a journal go through the same process. 

The process

For most journals, the process of article review is as follows:

  • A researcher or group of researchers conduct a study and draft an article
  • They submit the draft to a journal selected for publication
  • The journal editor reviews the draft to make sure the content aligns with the standards and intentions of the journal
  • If it does, they send it to peer reviewers – these are other professionals in the journal’s discipline 
  • The reviewers check for any methodological inaccuracies and ask the author(s) questions or for more details
  • The author(s) make changes and resubmit the article
  • The editor reviews the final article and decides whether to publish, require additional revisions, or reject the article

Because this process happens at the journal level, it’s important to know how to find that information regardless of the journal you are using. The peer review process of titles can also vary, with some soliciting volunteer reviewers while others have dedicated reviewers. Journals may also specify their policies regarding how artificial intelligence is used in the peer review process, if applicable. 

Why is peer review important?

Journals are often focused on very specific topics. Peer review helps to maintain the journalistic standards of publications because it helps to verify that research hasn’t been fully duplicated, the approach or methodology taken by the researchers is valid, it continues the conversation on a relevant topic, and that the research meets the standards of the discipline (Peer Review: An Introduction – University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). 

Peer review provides a preliminary review of the methodology and conclusions drawn by the author(s) of the article. The feedback and questions they supply to the author(s) can clarify the important messages of the research and offer the opportunity for the author(s) to ensure their claims are supported by the evidence. 

What is peer reviewed?

Not all published material in a journal is peer reviewed. Editorials, commentaries, book reviews, updates or corrections, and other similar items are not subject to peer review (Scholarly Articles from Salt Lake Community College)

How to find peer reviewed articles

When you are searching for articles in the library catalog or databases, you can often select “peer review” as a filter option. Doing so will restrict the results only to those journals that do peer review their articles. 

However, you may also need to verify what the exact peer review process is for different journals to evaluate their standards. To find the details of a journal’s peer review process, you will need to pull up the journal’s information page and look for their author guidelines or submission information, though the specific name varies. If the journal’s information is not linked directly in the database, just run an internet search for the journal name. 

As an example, perhaps you found a useful article from the journal “Advances in Cement Research,” but you want to know the details of the peer review process. While the journal is included in the database ScienceDirect, it does not include any information on peer review:

An internet search for the journal title shows that it is published by Emerald Publishing. They have a section called Reviewers, which shows the exact process this journal uses. 

Compare this to “Nature Review Electrical Engineering.” To find the peer review process details, you need to find the publication information on Nature.com, navigate to the “Publish with us” drop-down menu, and select “For Authors.”

From that page, you then select “Editorial process:”

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