Skip to Main Content

Managing the Research Process

This guide seeks to reinforce metaliteracy skills and help researchers to "utilize divergent (e.g., brainstorming) and convergent (e.g., selecting the best source) thinking when searching" and “give credit" to the original ideas of others.

Peer Review Info

Most of the library's research databases include articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals.

Each database interface will look a little different, but may include a way to limit your searches to peer reviewed articles. One example is pictured below... just make sure to look for a "peer review" limiter either before or after your search:

How do articles get peer reviewed?
What role does peer review play in scholarly research and publication?

Peer-reviewed journals only publish articles that have been approved by a panel of experts/researchers/professionals in a field of study. Some research professors/assignments will require that you only use peer-reviewed sources.

The video below, from North Carolina State University Libraries, explains peer review and what it means to you; In 3 minutes, viewers of this video will become familiar with the peer-review process and understand its significance to new knowledge production and scholarly research.

Learning to identify scholarly (often known as "peer-reviewed") and non-scholarly sources of information is an important skill to cultivate.  Many databases provide help with making this distinction; they will offer options when searching to identify peer-reviewed content.

Additionally, Ulrich's Directory of Publications is a database that can be searched to verify the publication type (scholarly, refereed, magazine, etc).

Here are the steps for finding Peer Reviewed articles in the library databases:

Go to the Library homepage and click the "off-campus access" button. https://library.fiu.edu/

Enter your username & password to access the databases when you're not on campus. https://login.ezproxy.fiu.edu/login

Now from the library homepage: Click on the "Research Tools" tab at the top and choose "Research: Start" https://library.fiu.edu/research

There is a list of databases on this page. You can choose ProQuest, Academic Search Complete, or Academic OneFile.

Once your are in the database, choose "Advanced Search"

There will be an option for Peer Reviewed journals or publications; Click it and this will limit to peer reviewed articles

Instruct: Sources of Information

identifying scholarly vs. popular sources