1. Does the journal include peer-reviewed articles?
Search for your journal title in Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory to see if it is scholarly/academic and refereed (peer-reviewed).
Now look at the article itself:
2. Is it an empirical article, i.e., a report of original research, written by the researcher(s)?
Even if you determined that the journal in which an article was published is scholarly, these journals usually also contain other types of articles such as editorials, commentary, review articles, and news.
♦ Clues you might find in the abstract include words such as:
study, results, methods/methodology, data, interview, survey, ethnographic, experimental,
questionnaire, empirical, data, qualitative, quantitative.
♦ Look at the format of the article. Does it follow the "typical format"?
3. Consider the Publication Date:
Is the article sufficiently up-to-date for your purpose?
4. Is it Relevant?
Does this information relate to your topic or answer your question?
