COUN 5053 Assessment and Statistics (BA): Articles/Databases

Frequently, journal articles are peer-reviewed or refereed. What does it mean to be peer-reviewed or refereed?

• A peer-reviewed journal is one that is reviewed by persons who are not members of the editorial board, and who are not paid employees of the journal. The reviewers are “peers” of the authors in the sense that they have comparable academic or professional experience, and are thus qualified to meaningfully critique the quality of the article. The decision whether or not to publish an article normally depends primarily on the judgment of the reviewers, though the editors arbitrate between--and sometimes override—the reviewers’ decisions. The purpose of a peer review system is to ensure an objective standard of quality in articles accepted for publication, which does not depend merely on the subjective preferences of the editorial staff (as long as the articles are consistent with the goals of the journal).
• Refereed is another name for peer-review, as the peers who review the article serve as a sort of referee.
• The peer-reviewed label means literally that a panel of independent scholars have recommended the article for publication.
• A way to be absolutely sure an article is from a peer-reviewed journal is to look in the database, UlrichsWeb (see link below). When you find your journal in UlrichsWeb, make sure there is a referee jersey icon associated with the title.

The following journals have online searching capabilities via the NSU Libraries website. Begin at the library homepage, then select E-Journals by Title, and type in any of these titles to search within your selected journal.

• Career Development Quarterly
• Counselor Education and Supervision
• Journal of College Student Development
• Journal of Counseling and Development
• School Counselor

There is a lot of content in this box, be sure to scroll down for additional tips/techniques.

• Be prepared with synonyms for your search terms in case your original search produces limited results. Use the "Subject Terms" or "Thesaurus" feature for the database you are searching for additional help with finding relevant subjects.
• Pay attention to any search tips or help screens provided by each database. Take the time to learn how to use the tools because they will help you avoid frustration later.
• Remember that most databases allow for Boolean Searching. 
• Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT)
  • Use AND to focus your search and combine different aspects of your topic.
    • Example: aging AND loneliness will return only those articles that contain both terms.
  • Use OR to expand your search and find synonyms/related terms.
    • Example: aging OR loneliness will return any article that contains either term.
  • Use NOT to exclude a word or phrase from your search.
    • Example: relationships NOT marraige will return articles on every form of relationships but exclude marraige.
• Phrase searching is another useful technique for narrowing a search to retrieve the most relevant results. 
• Use quotation marks (") to search for an exact phrase.
  • Example: "social isolation" will only return hits on the exact phrase (not the individual words).
• Truncation is also a useful techniques for expanding a search to retrieve all relevant results. For example:
  • Use an asterisk (*) to find variations of a word.  Put an asterisk following the root of a word to find all variations of that word (including singular as well as plural).
    • Example: teen* will retrieve documents containing the words teen, teens, and teenagers..