Peer Review is the process by which an article is evaluated by a group of specialists in its given field prior to being "accepted" for publication.
It attempts to certify that published articles meet a standard of accuracy, originality, and scholarly integrity.
Watch the video below and please meet with a librarian or ask at the Q&i Desk to get help in finding peer reviewed material. We are happy to help.
1. What's your notetaking method?
2. Here's three methods that might help:
Interrogative - apply original questions and thoughts to the article to begin developing new ideas for a paper
Summary - after reading without taking notes, paraphrase the article, to elicit important points in your own words
BEAM - pull out elements for Background Exhibit Argument Methodology
Learn more about BEAM here
Besides the Articles & Books Search, the UR Catalog provides another view into the print and electronic resources available to you. Try them both!
Other ebook providers include:
Interlibrary loan (ILL) is a free service for you to get any book or article the Libraries don't own.
For this class, I recommend using the ASME referencing style. If you find ASME's own guide confusing, another library has written a more approachable guide here.
In general, citations serve to give your reader a way to track down the information you used; they need to have enough detail that your reader can find the exact thing you did.
Reference management software can help you gather your references, organize and annotate them with your groups, and automatically generate your in-text citations and bibliography! I recommend Mendeley as an efficient citation manager. Take a look at their training material, or ask me for help getting started! (Tip: you'll have to install the American Society of Mechanical Engineering citation style. It's easy to do! Ask if you need help.)
Here are a few criteria for determining if your source is scholarly:
Author(s) credentials - are they experts working or teaching in this field of study?
Length - is it a few brief paragraphs or a longer, more substantive article?
Language - is it written for other scholars in the field? Do they used specialized or technical language specific to this field of study?
References - is the author(s) citing other scholars in this field of study? Do they have a robust reference list?
Journal or Book Type - If it's a journal article, what kind of journal is the article is published in? Is it a scholarly journal, or even peer reviewed? If it’s a book, is it published by a university press or other well-respected commercial publisher known for publishing scholarly works?