Guides: Business: Articles

What does peer-reviewed mean?

Peer-reviewed is the highest level of academic or scholarly publishing. The quality of the articles is maintained through a review process conducted by experts prior to publication. Not all academic journals are peer-reviewed, but all peer-reviewed journals are academic.

Articles submitted to a refereed or peer-reviewed journal are examined by one or more people with expertise in the field with which the article deals. This process gives the scholartic community assurance that the information in the article is credible and original. Some disciplines require peer-reviewed status more than others.

How can I tell if a journal is scholarly or not?

Databases

Use a database to search for sources such as peer reviewed journal articles, trade journals, news stories, reports, and more. Many of these databases offer:

advanced search capabilities
deeper topic coverage
tools for students, including auto-citing, email articles, and printing

Best Databases

Business Source Ultimate
Thousands of business journals, industry magazines, and industry & market reports.
Business Source Ultimate provides full-text access to a wide range of peer-reviewed journals, trade publications and general business magazines in addition to indexing and abstracts for scholarly business journals. Additional content includes case studies, company profiles, industry reports, SWOT analyses, and market research reports.
Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA)
Comprehensive coverage of Canadian topics, including business, politics, literature, history and news events.
Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA) provides broad coverage from a Canadian perspective, including scholarly journals, dissertations, magazines, and wire services. Subject list spans agriculture, business and economics, education, government and politics, health sciences, history, literature, medical sciences, social sciences, and many more areas.
IBISWorld Industry Reports
Access to Canada, US, and US specialized industry reports.These reports are updated annually and provide key statistics and analysis on market characteristics, operating conditions, current and historical performance, five-year forecasts on revenue, imports, exports, employment and other key statistics, major industry participants with market share and more.
Statista
Statista provides statistical data on many topics including media, business, politics, society, technology and education. Sources include market reports, trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases. Charts can be downloaded in PNG, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF formats or embedded in web pages and can be great in papers or presentations.
Help videos and more details are available at: https://www.statista.com/statistic-portal/.
Vividata (Dapresy)
Vividata allows users to customize their reports by demographics, attitudes, media consumption and profiling, retail outlets and product usage. The username and password are posted on your library account page (at the bottom).

By accessing and using Vividata you acknowledge and agree that you must:
- Not share any of its data or other contents publicly or with any other organizations or any individuals not affiliated with CapU.
- Must cite Vividata data and other contents appropriately, clearly acknowledging Vividata as the source, and
- Only use Vividata data for educational purposes.
- Not use CapU’s Vividata access for a paid or unpaid internship.
- Request explicit permission to use Vividata data for any research that is intended for publication. To acquire permission, please contact Vividata directly here (info@vividata.ca).
CARDonline
Advertising rates and related data are available on every significant medium in Canada. Includes magazines, newspapers, radio and television stations and other advertising media.
CPA Canada Standards and Guidance Collection (CPACHB)
Accounting handbooks and other resources published by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA).
Includes the following CICA resources: Accounting handbook, Assurance handbook, CICA public sector accounting handbook, Archived highlight summaries, Archived revision releases, Management's discussion and analysis, Guidance of the Criteria of Control Board, the Risk Management and Governance Collection.
ScienceDirect
Access to full text peer-reviewed journals published by Elsevier. Multidisciplinary in scope including coverage of the life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, technology and the humanities.
Small Business Accelerator (SBA)
Created by the experts at UBC Library, the Small Business Accelerator offers quality vetted resources that will enable BC entrepreneurs to answer challenging market research questions. Use the free tools on this website to structure your market research, grow your business, gauge potential market size or learn the latest industry trends.

View all recommended business databases.