To view the typical structure of a scholarly article, see North Carolina State University's Anatomy of a Scholarly Article.

What is Peer review?

• Peer review is a process where an author submits an article to an academic journal for publication. The article is reviewed by other experts in the field for content, methodology, and accurate reporting of findings before publication. 
• Consumer level articles that are reviewed by a health expert before publication are not peer reviewed.

Finding peer reviewed articles

• Some databases allow filtering by peer reviewed to limit your search to journals that are peer reviewed.
• To see if a journal is peer reviewed, check the journal website and look for information for authors or author guidelines. These sections usually describe the peer review process of each journal.
• Not all content in peer reviewed journals is peer reviewed. Editorials, book reviews, letters to the editor, and commentaries may not undergo a peer review process. This can differ by journal. Check the journal website as described above to see what articles undergo the peer review process.

Consumer health information can be found in popular resources, government agencies, and health organizations. 

• While consumer health information can be reliable information, it is not scholarly literature.
• Articles written for consumers can contain references to or report on findings in scholarly literature. In this case, the best thing to do is find the primary research article to review. 

How to tell if a source is consumer level

• Use the criteria chart above to determine if the information is scholarly or consumer level information. 
• Many times popular health resources will have disclaimers such as "This information is for educational purposes only" or similar verbiage. 

Government agencies and health organization websites can contain both scholarly and consumer level information.

• For instance, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) website contains consumer level information on diabetes prevention and management. The ADA website also contains the journals produced for health care professionals on diabetes research and treatments. 
• Medline Plus is a government website that has consumer level health information with links to scholarly articles.