Finding Peer-Reviewed Articles on Your Topic
FLC Library provides a variety of online research databases to meet your academic needs. Try conducting your topic keyword(s) search in one of the suggested databases below.
For example, if your topic is LUNG CANCER, the following terms could be used to search for articles:
These terms can be combined with other keywords such as treatment, therapy, prevention, trial, case control cohort, epidemiology, surgery, drugs, etc. to focus your search even more. For specific help on formulating your search, please see a librarian for help (see contact info on the left).
To access the databases from off campus, you will be prompted to enter your Folsom Lake College student ID and password.
Peer-reviewed (or refereed) journals contain articles that are written by experts. These articles are then reviewed by a panel of experts who scrutinize articles to make sure they meet professional research standards before they are accepted for publication. In most cases the reviewers do not know who the author of the article is, so that the article succeeds or fails on its own merit, not the reputation of the expert.
Many of the following traits often indicate that an article is peer-reviewed:
Types of Research Articles
Original Research - Data and ideas that come directly from the research
Review Articles - Compilation or synthesis of various ideas and data from original research
Summary Articles - Synopsis of research
Original Research (Basic Format)
Abstract
Introduction/Background
Methods (Material and Methods)
Results
Discussion/Conclusions
References