AskTheLibrary @ Antioch University

Peer reviewed (also known as scholarly, academic, or refereed) articles are those that come from an academic journal with a peer review process.

When an article is submitted for peer review, it goes to a series of experts in the field who go over the article to make sure that it's up to the journal's standards. If an article appears in a peer reviewed journal, it has passed that process.

Note that not everything in a peer-reviewed journal is itself peer-reviewed. Articles are, but editorials, news items, and book reviews often appear in journals but do not go through the peer-review process.