 Pure Review, brought to you by CSUSB's John M. Fowl Library. When an author has completed a paper they would like to be published as a means of sharing their knowledge with the research community, they will likely submit it to a scholarly journal. These publications, common in academia, are also known as peer-reviewed journals. The first person to see the paper that has been submitted is the journal's editor. If they think the paper fits the journal's scope, they will then send it to two or more experts in the field. The experts will spend time looking up the content, the writing, the methodology, and more. These experts are also known as peer reviewers. Sometimes the peer reviewers give the paper a thumbs up. Sometimes they give it a thumbs down. However, most of the time they suggest to the editor that the author make revisions before the paper can be published. This is actually very common. After the revisions are made, time often passes before the paper is published in the peer-reviewed journal. In fact, it can sometimes take a year or more. When the paper has finally been published in the scholarly journal, it is now considered a peer-reviewed article. You can access peer-reviewed articles in the library, through the library's databases, and on rare occasions on the open web. Traditionally, peer-review has been a way to ensure that the information published in scholarly journals is of high quality. While this is usually true, some note that such a process prevents the world from hearing alternative perspectives, especially from those outside of academia. Thus, if you want to access multiple voices, it's a good idea not to limit yourself solely to peer-reviewed journals. If you supplement the information in scholarly articles with material from resources such as books, interviews, oral histories, or even blog posts, you can gain a richer and more nuanced understanding of a topic.