2a. Overview of Sources
Finding Information
The key to effective research is knowing where to locate the best information sources for your topic.
Sources of Information
Types of Information Sources
What is Peer Review?
Definition
- Peer Review
- A process for vetting scholarly publications; articles are stripped of identifying information and examined by other subject experts to determine if they are sufficiently rigorous for publication. Peer review is the main distinction between popular and scholarly sources.
Discussion
Peer review isn’t perfect … it’s just the best we’ve got.
Peer review is a means of ensuring that scholarly research articles meet certain requirements and expectations of their field, but the peer-review process sometimes fails, which is why scientific and other academic disciplines are ongoing conversations, often involving self-correction.
Check out Retraction Watch, a site that monitors when journals retract peer-reviewed articles for reasons of error, poor data, dishonesy, plagiarism, or fraud. The site maintains a database of retractions across the spectrum of academic publications:
- Retraction Watch
- Why search here? Retraction Watch is a database of peer-reviewed articles that have been retracted because of plagiarism, fraud, or error. It also indexes articles about which “expressions of concern” have been made—that is, concerns that may eventually lead to retractions. This database can assist students in avoiding poor research.
- What’s included? The database contains thousands of entries. Each entry includes title, place of publication, author, reason for retraction, and other relevant information.
For further information on questionable peer-reviewed literature, see these resources:
- New Real Peer Review
An account that highlights dubious peer-reviewed research papers; the original Real Peer Review was shut down after several university professors threatened to “dox” its owner.
- “Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship”
An article by Helen Pluckrose, James A. Lindsay, and Peter Boghossian on the high-profile “grievance studies” hoax.
Limiting to Peer Review
Most databases allow you to limit your results to peer-reviewed articles.
Most of research databases available at NWOSU are hosted by the company EBSCO and have a similar layout. After you’ve conduced a search, select Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals in the left sidebar to limit your results:
Limiters in an EBSCO Database
A similar option is available in the library catalog:
Limiters in the Library Catalog
Remember, the data in the catalog is not always accurate, so even if you are using a limiter, it is your responsibility to make sure your sources are really peer reviewed.