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Stage 5

Academic Sources

Means other experts in the same discipline, such as Psychology, Biology, Art, Theater, review the written research for faults or errors.
These experts do not know who the other judges are.
The journal editor knows everyone and hides that information.
The aim is so people don't judge people, but judge the written research.
If the judges vote YEA, the journal will print that article.

Without peer review in industry, science, and academia, everyone would have to test every piece of information every day.
New headache medicine? better run the tests yourself because no one else would have.
Air bags work? Better hit something and test them, because no one else did.
Most of your day is surrounded by items, ideas, and objects that were tested by others to be efficacious or effective.

Most of your research papers in other courses will have a rubric that says you must use x number of peer reviewed articles.
In your BA years, you will be reading peer-reviewed articles weekly for classes, because the newest peer reviewed articles are the most up-to-date useful information in any field of study, months if not years before that information makes it into a new volume of a textbook.
In a graduate program, you'll have to be able to write like this.

I cannot trust you.
Research is based on other research and citations, not on trust for trust's sake.
That's why you have to cite your sources.
That's why scientific research must be replicable by other scientists.
That's why you have to include peer-reviewed articles in research.

Academic articles can be difficult to read because of specialized language specific to a discipline. Think of eating the bread to a sandwich: the top, the bottom, and nothing in between. Read like that:
- The introduction
- Discussion and/or summary and/or conclusion
After you have a better understanding of the articles, then you can skim/read the middle part of the article.