LibGuides: Biomedical Engineering: Evaluating Information

Useful books on evaluating journal articles

These recommended books will help you to critically evaluate the journal articles you are reading.

Medical Literature by Gordon Guyatt; Drummond Rennie; Deborah Cook; Maureen Meade
ISBN: 9780071590341
Publication Date: 2008-05-21
How to Read Journal Articles in the Social Sciences by Phillip Chong Ho Shon
ISBN: 9781473918801
Publication Date: 2015-08-28
Evaluating Research Articles from Start to Finish by Robert I. Kabacoff; Ellen R. Girden
ISBN: 9781412974462
Publication Date: 2010-09-20
How to Read a Paper by Trisha Greenhalgh
ISBN: 9781118800966
Publication Date: 2014-04-07
Also available as an e-book.

Peer review

Peer review, or refereeing, is the process by which a journal article manuscript undergoes critical evaluation from 2-3 other experts (working in the same field as the original researcher) before the journal editor makes a decision on whether to publish that article.

You can find out more about peer review from the links below.

Peer Review - Sense about Science Sense about Science is a charitable trust which aims to equip people to make sense of science and evidence in public discussion. Their plain language website has a number of excellent guides to the scientific process.
Peer Review: Journal or Journalist? [video] Suzi Gage from the University of Bristol talks to Decipher My Data about getting her work published. What makes peer review different to publishing a story in a newspaper?
Peer Review - The Scholarly Kitchen The Scholarly Kitchen is a blog published under the umbrella of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, part of whose mission is “[t]o advance scholarly publishing and communication”. The authors offer their own differing opinions, commentary, and ideas.
Peer Review process in 3 minutes How do articles get peer reviewed? What role does peer review play in academic (scholarly) research and publication? This video will explain.

Critical evaluation

Critically evaluating journal articles This interactive activity is aimed at students who are already familiar with journal articles and are getting used to using them for different purposes.Created by the Skills Hub, University of Northampton.

Impact factors and other journal quality measures

All journals were not created equal. There are a number of statistical tools that are available to give an indication of the relative quality of a journal title. When using these tools, please ensure you are comparing journal titles within a particular subject area only, and that you are aware of the limitations of such tools. More information on journal measures and tools, including h-index, eigenfactor, journal citation reports and more, can be found in the Measuring Research Output LibGuide.