Page History

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• If it's online, go to the journal home page and check under About This Journal. Often the brief description of the journal you find there will note that it's peer-reviewed or refereed or will list the editors or editorial board.
• In some library databases, there will be a feature that automatically limits your search to scholarly or peer-reviewed articles
• Go to the database Ulrich's (TC) and do a Title (Keyword) search for the journal. If it is peer-reviewed or refereed, the title will have a little umpire-shirt symbol next to it.
• Be careful! A journal can be refereed or peer-reviewed and still have articles in it that are not peer-reviewed. Generally, if the article is an editorial, a brief news item, or a short communication, it will not have been through the full peer-review process. Most Ddatabases like Web of Knowledge will let you restrict your search exclusively to articles (and not editorials, conference proceedings, and so on).

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• Printable PDF: SourceEvaluationChecklist.pdf
  Text modified from Cornell University Library. (2009). Introduction to Research. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro#2Findingbooks,articles,andothermater\\

Using Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the most amazing projects to emerge in recent years. Before Wikipedia, the idea that the sum of human knowledge could be collected and updated by ordinary people had been unthinkable. It is unparalleled as a barometer of knowledge production and epistemology. Never before in history have the collective seeking of so many people and the battle for a neutral point of view in knowledge production been so open, transparent, and democratic. (TC)

As a tool for scholarly research, Wikipedia can be either a grade killer or a valuable friend, depending on who you ask or what you hope to accomplish using it. What is fairly certain is that your professor won't let you cite it in a scholarly research paper.

There are a few common reasons why you can't site Wikipedia:

• Wikipedia is an an general (TC) encyclopedia. At the collegiate or university level, your professors are looking for more than general rudimentary material. Encyclopedias General eEncyclopedias usually give baseline information, the type of common knowledge that isn't usually cited. Academic subject-specific encyclopedias will often provide more scholarly and citeable information. (TC)
• There is often no way to know who is editing the entries in Wikipedia or what his or her level of expertise is
• You cannot be sure that the content is "permanent" (though you can look at the revision history on the History page)
• You cannot be sure that the content meets standards of academic rigor. One of Wikipedia's main principles is that it strives for a neutral point of view (which it abbreviates to NPOV). This standard states that all articles should strive to "represent...all significant views on each topic fairly, proportionately, and without bias." The problem is that in any knowledge endeavor, much less a collaborative and ad hoc venture like Wikipedia, deciding what's neutral and having something reviewed for NPOV can be controversial undertakings---and too uncertain to meet standards of academic rigor. However, having such a debate take place publicly on Wikipedia makes for interesting talk-page reading and for a good pros-and-cons debate.

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