Searching Databases & Finding Peer-Reviewed Articles

The terms "peer-review" or "scholarly" are often used by professors on academic assignments, but what do they mean?

Peer-review refers to a specific publishing process where an article is reviewed prior to publication by scholars who study in the same field as the author(s) of the article.  These scholars judge how valuable the research is to the field (is it saying anything new? controversial? substantiating findings of previous research?) as well as the quality and validity of the research process used (are the methods appropriate or valid?).  They decide if the article should be published in the journal or not.  The peer-review process is often "blind" - meaning the reviewers do not know who the author(s) of the article are at the time of the review.  This is an effort to prevent reviewers from favoring individuals they may know or being biased against the research.  However, the peer-review process is only one way to judge the quality of information.  The validity of the peer-review process itself is debated by scholars across most all fields of study.

How to Read an Academic paper (without losing your mind)