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AR 367-01/H1: African American Art

This guide is designed to help you locate basic resources on the subject of African American Art.

What is Peer Review & Why is it Important?

While the terms "Academic" and "Scholarly" can often be interchanged, they do vary:

  • Academic Journals: Defined as journals that publish articles carrying footnotes and bibliographies, and whose intended audience is comprised of some kind of research community. It is a broad classification that includes both "peer-reviewed" journals as well as journals that are not "peer-reviewed" but intended for an academic audience.

  • Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals: Defined as journals that are intended for an academic audience and have undergone the peer-review process.

Peer review is an extra layer of scrutiny of academic articles and is thus the highest standard of academic publication. It is important because:

  • It acts as a filter to ensure that only high quality research is published, especially in reputable journals, by determining the validity, significance and originality of the study.
  • It is intended to improve the quality of manuscripts that are deemed suitable for publication. Peer reviewers provide suggestions to authors on how to improve the quality of their manuscripts, and also identify any errors that need correcting before publication.

Sources: EBSCO; Kelly J, Sadeghieh T, Adeli K. Peer Review in Scientific Publications: Benefits, Critiques, & A Survival Guide. EJIFCC. 2014 Oct 24;25(3):227-43. .

The Peer Review Process

Peer review process: scientists study something; scientists write about the results; journal editor receives article& sends out for peer review; peer reviewers read the article & provide feedback; if any article finally meets editorial and peer review standards it is published in the journal; editor may send reviewer comments to the scientist who many then rewrite and resend the article for further review. If an article does not maintain sufficiently high scientific standards, it may be rejected at that point.