Scholarly journals are a type of periodical published by academic publishers, professional organizations, and research groups. The intended audience for scholarly journals consists of subject specialists, researchers, faculty, and other scholars in the subject area.
Scholarly journals are usually “peer reviewed”. Peer review means the articles are subjected to scrutiny by other researchers before publication to ensure the highest levels of academic merit, research value and accuracy. Library databases use several different terms to indicate a scholarly journal, including:
- Peer reviewed
- Juried
- Refereed
Articles in peer reviewed or scholarly journals are almost always reporting on original research. The article will usually have these elements:
- Author(s) credentials or academic affiliation
- A lengthy abstract
- Report on the research methodology
- Conclusion or results of the research
- Footnotes or in-text references
- A lengthy bibliography
Most library databases contain a variety of materials including magazines, scholarly journals, newspapers, etc. You can limit your search to include only those articles from scholarly or peer reviewed journals. Below is an example from the Academic Search Premier database:
Remember, some databases will use terms other than ‘scholarly’ to limit your search.
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