Peer-reviewed articles are primarily based on academic studies, precisely research that has been conducted. They exhibit properly defined methods and attitudes of scholars. When reading through the article, the sense and taste of intelligence are experienced that obviously attracts an arousing strong curiosity. For an article to be called peer-reviewed, there are several processes that it must go through. First, the journal must pass through the hands of academic scholars popularly referred to as the peer, for strict review and commendation. The academic reviewer’s mandate is to confirm whether the article demonstrates research that is properly conducted and original. When this is confirmed, the work is published and becomes a peer-reviewed article (elsevier.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org, 2011).
Peer-reviewed journals have an abstract and a summary that shows an overview of the entire article. All academic articles usually cite their sources in form of bibliographies that are normally very lengthy (Shatz, 2004). The author’s list of affiliations is usually found at the bottom of the first page mostly towards the article end. The majority of peer-reviewed articles are usually published by specific professional publishers. Academic journals have many graphs and charts relevant to the research being conducted. There are very few pages on the glossary and the articles usually have to exit pictures (Engle, 2011).
A selection of non-peer-reviewed articles may include; research articles, literature review articles, theoretical articles, scholarly books, dissertations, conference proceedings papers, various reports, as well as government data. These non-peer-reviewed articles are mainly scholarly (Walden University, 2011).
American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) is a peer-reviewed journal published by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. The journal covers crucial issues regarding infection control as well as epidemiology. In addition, the journal publishes infection control guidelines from both Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). This journal is a useful resource not only in infection control and epidemiology but also in quality management, disease prevention, and occupational health. This journal presents articles that are of significant value to health professionals, including nurses, physicians, and epidemiologists. Health professionals benefit from both original types of research, as well as topics on crucial clinical issues published by the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) (elsevier.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org, 2011).
The importance of peer-reviewed scholarly journals to a scholar-practitioner in epidemiology is that they provide a wide range of synthesized research literature. The information contained in peer-reviewed journals provides scholar-practitioners in epidemiology with in-depth discussions, justification, methodologies from different backgrounds, and case studies. Peer-reviewed journals provide scholar-practitioners in epidemiology with literature in both qualitative and quantitative research (Fink, 2010).
Peer-reviewed journals and scholarly journals do share a few similarities. This is because they are both written by scholars and incorporate intense academic literature. Both peer-reviewed journals and scholarly journals are widely researched documents that provide in-depth literature reviews. Both journals contain factual information because they are written after comprehensive research has been done.
The differences between peer-reviewed articles and non-peer-reviewed articles are based on the criteria for evaluation. Peer-reviewed articles are usually publications by organizations or research institutions while non-peer-reviewed articles could be scholarly journals and other publications either by individuals’ research works, scholars, or academic institutions (Walden University, 2011). Peer-reviewed publications are a collection of researched articles articulating a specified area of concern, for instance, infections control. Non-peer-reviewed articles on the other hand may not specifically focus on a major subject, but rather may vary in issues that are researched.
The most assured way of differentiating between peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed journals is by searching the journal article using its title in Ulrich’s periodical directory. Peer-reviewed journals, unlike non-peer-reviewed journals are large in volumes and contain articles from different authors (Walden University, 2011).
References
Peer reviewed articles.(2011). American Journal of Infection Control. Web.
Engle, M. (2011). Distinguishing scholarly journals from other periodicals. Web.
Fink, A. (2010). Conducting research literature reviews: from the Internet to paper (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Shatz, D. (2004). Peer review: a critical inquiry. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Walden University. (2011). Peer reviewed resources. Web.