Peer Review: Peer Reviewed sources are scholarly journals, articles and books that go through a screening process before publication. Other experts in the subject review the claims made for accuracy and verifiability, as well as scrutinize any experiments conducted for procedural, ethical, or other human errors. To help students with recognizing work that meets high standards, instructors will often require students to rely on peer reviewed sources for course work.
How do I know if its peer reviewed?
A checkbox to only show peer reviewed sources is available from the Advanced Search screen of most databases. If unsure, you often can also determine whether articles from an academic database are peer reviewed by looking up the title of the journal the article was originally published in.
Authoritative?
Saying that something is authoritative means that the person who created it is an authority on the subject. This is another way of saying expert. The individual in question is someone who has specialized training, experience, and/or knowledge. Titles and degrees often are used to represent expertise but it is important to scrutinize the qualifications of an author and ensure that they line up with the topic they are speaking about.
Experts in the same field can and do disagree but before taking a side in these disputes, it is important to understand what the disagreement is about and how authorities have arrived at their differing points of view.