A peer-reviewed journal is a highly respected scholarly publication. Before an article is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it is sent by the editors of the journal to other scholars in the field ("peers") to get feedback on the quality of the scholarship. Reviewers comment on the quality of the research methods, as well as relevance or importance to the field. The article may be accepted, often with revisions suggested, or rejected for publication. Many researchers submit articles to peer-reviewed journals, and many of these journals have low acceptance rates.
When searching for peer-reviewed articles, a good rule of thumb is to search in at least three different databases. Results, display, and search features differ from database to database so you may miss critical articles if you use just one.
Some great places to start your research are WPI Library Search and Google Scholar, which are interdisciplinary resources. For discipline-specific research, browse our Subject Guides to find databases and other online resources that relate to your topic. If you know the name of a database you wish to search, such as JSTOR or ScienceDirect, go to our A-Z List of Databases.
To find peer reviewed articles in WPI Library Search, type your keywords into the Summon search box, and then choose the Peer-Reviewed Journals filter on the left.
You can also find peer-reviewed articles in our databases. Here are some databases to help you get started:
Abstracts from the Compendex database, which includes the electronic version of Engineering Index, with links to full text articles, patents, standards and handbooks in scientific, applied science, technical and engineering disciplines. Comprising journals, conference proceedings, dissertations, standards, books, and recently preprints, Compendex content is sourced from thousands of publishers from around the world, including major engineering societies such as IEEE, ASME, SAE and ACM.
Google search for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports on all topic areas. Use to find articles from academic publishers, professional societies, prepublication repositories and universities.
The IEEE Xplore digital library is a resource for discovery of scientific and technical content published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and its publishing partners. It contains the.full text of all IEEE and IEE journal articles, conference papers, and standards. Tutorials are available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplorehelp/ieee-xplore-training/video-tutorials
Online archive of eBooks and complete backruns of scholarly journals in a variety of academic fields.
PubMed comprises more than 29 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
Full text access to more than 2000 Elsevier science, social science, engineering and management scholarly journals.
Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research. Scopus delivers the most comprehensive overview of the world’s research output in the fields of Science, Technology, Medicine, Social Sciences, and Arts & Humanities. As research becomes increasingly global, interdisciplinary and collaborative, Scopus helps ensure that crucial research from around the world is not missed.
When searching in the library's databases, you may find an abstract for an article but not the full-text. When this happens, click on the FullTextFinder icon.
The FullTextFinder will either redirect you to another database that has the full-text of the article or it will tell you that we don't have this article in our collections. If we don't have an article that you need, request the article via Interlibrary Loan. Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service that allows WPI students and faculty to request items from other libraries free of charge.