Smarter Searching: Going Beyond Google: Identifying Scholarly Journals

Understanding Terms:

Peer-reviewed, Empirical, & Qualitative vs Quantitative

Need some help with these frequently-used terms?

Peer-reviewed

Peer-reviewed journals (often called "scholarly" or "academic" journals) contain original research articles.

These articles have been reviewed by other scholars in the field - the authors' academic peers. The reviewers work to ensure the integrity and quality of the research being reported upon.

Empirical

Empirical articles are based on experimentation or observation. In other words, they describe the results of research. Peer-reviewed articles usually describe empirical research.

Qualitative vs Quantitative Research

Peer-reviewed articles may describe either qualitative or quantitative research.

Qualitative research tries to understand who, what, how, when, and why. It explores the nature of something. Typical approaches include observation, interviews, and focus groups.

Quantitative research describes how much or how often. It relies on statistics and variables to prove or disprove something.

Here's a short video describing the difference.

Which of these articles represents peer-reviewed original research?