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Are all journals peer reviewed?
No, not all scholarly journals are peer reviewed. Even within a peer reviewed journal, certain types of articles (for example, book reviews) may not be subject to the peer-review process.
How can I find peer-reviewed articles?
Using one of the databases available from the University of Manitoba Libraries will help you find peer-reviewed journals.
Many of the Libraries databases have an ability to limit searches to peer-reviewed articles. Examples: The Libraries' One Stop Search and EBSCOhost databases.
Several databases include mostly peer-reviewed journals and therefore do not have an option to limit to peer-reviewed articles. Limiting your search to journal articles will find peer-reviewed articles. Examples: PubMed, SciFinder, Web of Science, Scopus.
Can I find peer-reviewed articles in Google Scholar?
Google Scholar will find both peer-reviewed articles as well as articles that are not peer-reviewed. It is not possible to limit your search just to peer-reviewed articles.
How can I determine whether a particular journal is peer reviewed?
The editorial information for a journal - such as the instruction to authors - should say whether it undergoes a peer review process. This should be able to be found on a journal's web site. We also subscribe to a database called Ulrich's which classifies whether journals are refereed (aka peer reviewed) or not. For more assistance contact your subject librarian.
Scientific journals began in the mid-1600's as a way to facilitate scholarly communications. The first one was Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. As science has grown since then, so has the number of published journals. Today there are more than 100,000 scientific titles published. Journals are the most important resource for most scientists. Some journals are published by scientific societies. Important societies for chemical journals include the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Others are published by commercial publishers like Elsevier, Wiley, and Springer.
There are several different types of journals and journal articles. Some types include hybrid, review, communications, full papers and news journals.
Hybrid Journals contain a mixture of different types of articles. They could include research articles, communications as well as review papers.
Communications consist of short papers, 2 to 4 pages long, containing the most important features of a discovery, lacking detailed procedures and discussion.
Review journals specialize in longer articles summarizing research in a particular field usually over a given time period. Written by experts. Authors are often invited to submit a paper. Good place to start a retrospective search.
Full paper journals carry full-length articles on original research. This is the most common type of journal article.
News journals specialize in short summaries of "hot" research in language aimed at non-specialists. Often written by journalists with science training rather than by scientists.
There is a very basic tutorial on the differences between scholarly journals and popular magazines that was prepared by the Peabody Library at Vanderbilt University: Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals.
shorter, omit many of the sections above
summarize previously published research so usually don't include experimental section. List of references is usually extensive.
More Information
March's Advanced Organic Chemistry by 
The ACS Style Guide by 
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