 Many assignments require that students use peer-reviewed scholarly articles. But what does peer-review mean, and how do you know that the articles you find meet the qualifications? That's what this video will cover. When a journalist writes an article and sends it to the editor of a magazine or newspaper, the editor reviews the work and decides whether to publish it or not. An important feature that distinguishes scholarly articles is that when an expert in a given field conducts research and writes up the results, findings, or conclusions, and sends it off to a reputable journal for consideration for publication, the editor will send that article out to a panel of other experts trained in the same field that the article covers. These experts read the work and evaluate it. They are not checking for grammar or spelling errors. They are looking to save the article's adding new information or knowledge to the field. Did the researcher use established best practices when conducting their research? Did the literature review and references acknowledge the leading experts in the field, and does the new work build on the work of others? Finding peer-reviewed articles is easy thanks to limiters present in each of IRSC's subscription databases. These filters help you locate a results list full of articles that have been peer-reviewed. Looking at an article record will also allow you to identify if an article has been peer-reviewed. If you are still not sure if an article has been peer-reviewed or not, it's always possible to look up a particular journal online and identify their publication processes. This is also something that any IRSC librarian would be happy to assist you with. Just ask for help.