SOAN 101: Introduction to Sociology (Struna): Getting Started

What is peer review?
Your professors will often ask you to find, evaluate and use sources that are peer-reviewed or refereed.  Peer review is a process through which submitted journal articles or books are evaluated by individuals with expertise in the subject area or discipline, who then make recommendations to the editor as to whether or not to publish the material.  Peer review is used in the publication of both articles in scholarly journals and scholarly books (called monographs).  An article or book published after peer review typically has received extensive critiques and has undergone at least one major revision before reaching publication.

What is a scholarly journal?
A scholarly journal is devoted to a specific subject area, topic or theme, and publishes peer-reviewed articles, as well as a variety of non-peer-reviewed content, including book reviews and commentaries, that would be of interest to scholars and students in the discipline.

What is a monograph?
A monograph is a scholarly book on a tightly focused topic.  A monograph makes an argument using both primary and secondary sources.  Before publication, it undergoes a lengthy peer review and revision process.  Monographs typically are published by university or other non-profit presses, although some for-profit publishers also concentrate on academic publishing.