A peer-reviewed article is a scholarly work that has been evaluated by experts in the same field before publication.
Peer review is a process in academic publishing used to maintain the quality and reliability of scholarly work. When an article is peer reviewed, it means that experts in the same field have carefully examined the research before it's published. This process serves several important purposes:
- To act as a quality control measure, ensuring that published research meets high standards of academic rigor.
- To help validate the credibility of findings and can often improve the overall quality of the work through constructive feedback.
- To provide an additional layer of scrutiny for catching errors, flaws in methodology, or inconsistencies in data analysis overlooked by the original authors.
- To allow reviewers to provide feedback which could improve the article. This may be through offering different interpretations of findings, providing references to additional literature to consider, or asking for explanations or clarity for particular points.
A peer-reviewed article may still contain misinformation. Sometimes articles are retracted (removed from a journal after publication) due to major errors, ethical issues, or flawed research.
