Academic vs. Scholarly Resources
What's the difference between academic, scholarly, peer-reviewed, and refereed journal articles?
Answer
While those terms aren't fully interchangeable, they are all very similar. Academic or scholarly journals are published in every academic discipline. Articles in these journals are written by researchers, often experts, in their respective fields of study.
Peer-reviewed or refereed journals also contain articles by researchers and experts but before articles are published, they go through a read/review process. Here's how it works: I send my article to the American Journal of Journals to see if they'll publish it. They contact several people in my field and ask them to review my work and make recommendations to the editors as to whether they should accept or reject my article. Academic or scholarly journals may also be peer-reviewed or refereed journals but they might not so check carefully.