"What the heck is a peer reviewed journal?"
A peer-reviewed journal is publication in which all of the research articles were scrutinized by an author's peers (other scholars working in the same field) before publication. Some journals have a blind peer-review process, in which the reviews do not know the authors' names. These journals are published by universities, professional organizations, and research institutes.
Keep in mind that not all articles in a single issue of these journals will be peer-reviewed or the result of research. Some articles may be editorials, position statements, or responses to other articles. Make sure to look for the correct structure (IMRaD) to identify a research article.
This is a simplified list of possible articles you might encounter in your searches. The list is derived from a concept called Evidence-Based Medicine or Evidence-Based Practice. For more information on Evidence-Based Information, please watch this video from OvidWoltersKluwer: https://youtu.be/OvenUa3Ww8o. The original list forms a hierarchy of evidence, indicating which research is already critically appraised for reliability and applicability.
Research-based and scholarly articles, which are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, typically follow a certain structure, known as IMRAD. The following description is adapted to include the abstract of a research article in the framework.
The abstract is a summary, written by the author's that summarizes the article, including the purpose, methods, and basic findings.
The introduction provides the context for the research, often reviewing previous literature, providing an in-depth description of the research question being explored, and how the research will extend or fill any research gaps in the subject area.
The methods section offerers detailed information about how the study or research was conducted, including how information was gathered or participants were selected. In addition the researchers, where relevant, will indicate how the results will be analyzed.
The results provide a detailed looked at the results of the research, including any statistical (I like to call the "math-y" parts) analysis carried out.
The discussion provides a summary of the significant findings that were detailed in the results. In addition, the discussion session discusses how the results supported the purpose and thesis of the research question. In addition, the authors will discuss any limitations in their results. Sometimes a conclusion followings the discussion to wrap up the research article and discuss suggestions for further research.
Scholarly articles can be thought of as put together like an inside-out Oreo. The “good stuff” – is on the outside (if your favorite part is the filling of the cookie): the Abstract, Introduction, the Discussion, and the Conclusion.
The “dry stuff” is on the inside of the article: the Methodology and the Results.
Read for basics and relevance first
Scan the data
Now reread the entire article and the methods and results will make more sense now that the purpose and conclusions of the research are more familiar to you.
