Peer-reviewed journals are often called scholarly or academic journals. They are different from popular magazines. See this comparison chart.
Articles in peer-reviewed journals:
This short video from Vanderbilt University helps to explain the difference between scholarly journals and popular magazines and other periodicals.
If you are not sure how to tell if a journal article is from a peer-reviewed journal, please see the library's guide to "Scholarly Journals: How Can You Tell?"
TIP: Remember that all scholarly journal articles are written by experts, and will include lots of in-text citations and a complete list of references at the end.
If database searching is new for you, learn the benefits of using them in your research, with this short video from Yavapai Community College Library.
KPU Library subscribes to over 100 research databases covering different subjects and types of information. I've listed just a few below to get you started.
Large, multidisciplinary article database that is a good starting point for research in many areas.
To find out which databases are most useful for specific subjects, you can either:
1) Look at the library's research guide for your subject. You'll probably see a tab labeled "Journal Articles" or "Articles".
2. Use the SUBJECTS filter on our complete A-Z list of research databases. See the example for the subject of Anthropology in this screenshot:
TIP: Be sure to limit your search to peer-reviewed (scholarly) journal articles using the filter available in each database.
But be aware that it is not a perfect filter. It only tells you whether an article comes from a journal that usually publishes mostly peer-reviewed articles. Almost all peer-reviewed journals include a mixture of different kinds of articles, including short pieces such as book reviews and editorials. These short pieces do NOT go through the same peer-review process as the rest of the articles in the journal, but they will still be included in the peer-reviewed results by a database. Always look at the article for the typical features of a scholarly article such as an abstract and extensive in-text citations.
If you have not found anything useful in the Library's databases (though that's very unlikely!), you may want to check Google Scholar.
Google Scholar lists articles from a wide variety of scholarly journals. It also includes references to book chapters and many other types of sources.
Google Scholar does not usually provide the full-text for articles for free, so you might get prompted to pay for access to an article.
Do not pay for articles! It's quite likely that the KPU Library subscribes to the journal.
Look up the journal title here to find out if it's available through KPU Library:
This search will ONLY tell you whether Kwantlen users have access to a specific journal title, and link you to a list of available issues.
This tool will NOT search for individual articles on a specific topic in these journals. For that, you need to use a Research Database. (Try the recommended databases in the second tab of this box first.)
You can request a copy from another library using our interlibrary loan service at no charge. We do the searching and can deliver most articles to you via email within 2 business days.
This short video demonstrates several of the tips listed in the class handout. It's part of an excellent series of Research Basics videos from JSTOR: