Q. What databases have peer-reviewed articles?

Some databases allow you to limit searches to journals that are considered peer-reviewed, also known as scholarly or refereed. The largest of these databases is EBSCOhost's Academic Search Complete (limit to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals). Others include most of the other EBSCOhost databases and ProQuest databases. Discovery Search (from the library homepage) allows limiting to peer-reviewed articles (see the following FAQ).

ProQuest includes about 80 databases grouped into 10 broad subject areas:

• Agriculture, biological sciences, and natural resources;  
• Architecture, art, and design; 
• Business and economics; 
• Engineering and physical sciences; 
• General interest; 
• Health and medicine; 
• Humanities and performing arts; 
• Languages and literatures; 
• Research starter; and
• Social sciences and education. 

Select an area or a specific database and the Advanced Search mode. Search results will be displayed by source type; e.g., Journals, Peer-Reviewed Journals, Conferences, Web Sites, Books, Reports, Dissertations, News, Other. Note that the display or search by source type is only available in the Advanced Search and does not appear when running a Quick Search, which is the default search mode.

Many subject-specific databases also index peer-reviewed articles.

If you use a database that does not offer a way to limit results to peer-reviewed articles, you can check the UlrichsWeb database to see if the journal in which the article was published is peer-reviewed. In the UlrichsWeb database, search using the journal title (not the article title) from your citation. Look for the Document Type and Refereed fields to determine if the journal in question is peer-reviewed.