Getting Started With Research

Peer review refers to a process of review by the author’s professional peers (scholars or experts in their field).

There are a few different types of peer review processes including:

• blind peer review whereby an article is sent to external reviewer outside of publishing/sponsoring organization and the author’s identity or the reviewer’s identity is unknown;
• editorial board peer review (review by internal board of editors);
• expert peer review (internal or external experts, author’s identity may be known or unknown); and
• open peer review (disclosure of peer author and reviewer identities and more transparent and participatory process). 

The words “academic” and “scholarly” are often used interchangeably and are usually used to describe peer-reviewed articles. Some databases such as ArtSource (EBSCO) differentiate between “academic” (may or may not be peer-reviewed) and “scholarly” (MUST be peer-reviewed) articles. In addition to the hundreds of journals available online through our E-Resources, here are a few peer-reviewed journals available in print in the library’s Reading Room: Art Bulletin, Design Issues Journal, Journal of Modern Craft, October, and TOPIA.