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Common sections of a peer-reviewed research article:

How do I find peer reviewed articles?

 

black and white research paper

 

What are peer reviewed articles?

Peer reviewed articles are published in scholarly, peer reviewed journals and usually follow a consistent format. The articles have gone through a "peer review process" wherein a panel of experts has approved of the quality of writing, soundness of the research methods, logic of results, and significance to the field.

 

Sections of a peer reviewed article

►Abstract: Identifies the focus of the article and summarizes findings. This is NOT a section you paraphrase or quote in your assignment. You read it to determine if the article is relevant and worth looking into further. 

►Introduction: Provides context for the article, including what is the current state of research for this topic or area of study. This section may give you clues about why this area of study is important and what gap this particular research paper is hoping to fill. 

►Methods: Discusses study design and research methods. Here you will find out if the research was qualitative or quantitive, and more specifically how the data was gathered.

►Results: May include graphs, charts, figures, and tables as the author(s) lay out the findings. 

►Discussion: Where authors write about what their results mean. This section is useful for understanding what the purpose of the study was, what was found, and what it suggests for this field of research.

►Conclusion: Wraps up the article, and may discuss limitations of the study that the researchers faced. May suggest areas for further research.

►References: Section at the end of the paper that lists the other publications the authors cited. You can use this section to find other relevant articles you would like to explore. 

 

Tips for reading a peer reviewed paper

  1. Start by reading the abstract. Is the paper relevant to your research? Is it the right "type" of paper (e.g., original research study, literature review, other review paper?)
  2. Jump to the Discussion section. This is where you'll find the study is broken down and the authors describe what they tried to do, and what they actually found.
  3. Skim the Introduction section. This gives you a grounding in why this topic of research is important and what other researchers have explored in this field.
  4. If you're looking for how researchers collected the data, go to the Methods section. If you want to know what limitations the study had and what other avenues are open for furture research, jump to the Conclusion.

What is the difference between Research and Review articles?

Both can be found in peer reviewed journals. However, generally speaking, research articles describe original research that has been conducted, and review articles discuss previously published research. You can often tell from the Abstract of an article whether it is a research article or a review article. For other tips, as well as a breakdown of what these articles look like, please see here:

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