What are Journals?

To put it in simple terms, journals are like magazines with research instead of news.

They are serials (which means new issues are published on a regular basis) produced by professionals in a certain field for the use of other professionals in that field.

Journals come in two main types: peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed.

Peer reviewed journals are the most reliable and respectable form of published research you can use. Every article in a peer reviewed journal has been read by several other leading experts and researchers in the field and has met a strict standard for the research, analysis and writing.

It takes at least a year for an article to be published in a peer reviewed journal, and during that year it is read, checked, examined and tested by a number of the authors' "peers", who have all decided that it meets the standards necessary to be published in their journal, and they believe it is reliable.

Non-peer reviewed journals don't have that safety net. This doesn't mean that the articles published in non-peer reviewed journals aren't worth reading, or that you can't use them in your assignment. However, it does mean that the articles won't be as respected and reliable as those from a peer reviewed journal, and you may find that there are problems with the article. For example, if the article was a report on a study, the study might be flawed or the analysis of the results might be incorrect. Without the peer review process, these mistakes would not be picked up before publication.

Sometimes your lecturer will specifically ask you to use peer reviewed journals. There are a number of different lists of peer reviewed articles on the web. If you want to find a list, you should try putting in the name of your field of study (e.g. Education) and the words "peer reviewed journals" in a search engine.

If you want to know if the particular journal you are using is a peer reviewed journal, you could put the title of the journal and the words "peer reviewed" into a search engine.

You can also ask a faculty librarian at the nearest academic library. They are usually highly familiar with the peer reviewed journals in their faculty's field, and can steer you in the right direction.