Subject Training for LSD

Your research project requires primary sources. However, scholarly sources may be primary or secondary. What does that mean?

Furthermore, your articles must be peer-reviewed. What is peer review, and how may you identify if your source is peer-reviewed?
Peer review refers to the evaluation of scientific/academic articles submitted to journals. These evaluations are done by the author's peers—meaning researchers and scholars—who are experts in the same field of study. The reviewers assess the validity of the data, the author's conclusions, and the novelty of the research to determine if it should be published in the journal. In short, peer review ensures the good quality and credibility of research!

To determine if your articles are peer-reviewed, go to the publishing journal's website. Here, you will be able to find information about the journal, how articles can be submitted, and the publication process. This information is often linked as information for authors, instructions for authors, submit an article, or something similar.

You may also refine your search within several databases to only result in peer-reviewed articles.

or 

A good practice is to also find your article on Emory's Articles+ tool, where you can directly confirm peer-review status.

What are some advanced search techniques?

• Identify keywords, synonyms, and alternative search terms.
• Search several databases.
  • Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to expand or refine results.
  • Use wildcard character (*) to search for related terms.
• Follow "cited by" trails in bibliographies or on Google Scholar.
• Set up an account or folder within a database to save materials.
• Set up search alerts to keep track of most current research.