This guide is for the library research workshop for students in Stephanie Ashton's CRIM 1101 course on Feb. 28, 2022.
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?"
Peer-reviewed journals are often called scholarly or academic journals. They are different from popular magazines.
Articles in peer-reviewed journals:
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DO NOT rely on the 'peer-reviewed' checkbox in a database to be completely accurate! Why not? It is only a rough filter that tells you whether a journal includes some peer-reviewed articles. Most 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. |
Image source: Search Tips and Planning by Deakin University
See the Journal Articles tab on this guide for more research database suggestions.
Citing your sources properly shows that you have done your research and consulted appropriate sources for your topic. It also acknowledges that all research builds on work that has come before. You are giving credit to sources that have influenced or informed your work. If you do not do this, you are essentially stealing another person's ideas, which is called plagiarism.
Whenever you use another person's ideas (even if you put this into your own words), you must give them credit. You do this by CITING the source you used in two places:
Most library research databases have built-in citation generators. These are handy tools to create a rough citation, but you ALWAYS need to double-check them. Here is an example from Summon:
