Psychology

Peer Review
"Peer Review” describes an evaluation process of articles written for publication in academic or professional journals. When an author submits an article to such a journal, the editor routes it to a committee of peers in the author's discipline that examines the article for accuracy, writing quality, and content valuable to the field. Most scholars believe that peer-review lends credibility and authority to an article because it has been scrutinized by experts in the field before being accepted for publication.

Empirical Articles (Primary) vs. Review (Secondary) Articles
In science-based disciplines, articles that report on original research studies are considered primary sources and are called “empirical”. Empirical studies usually are published in peer-reviewed journals. Normally, these articles are divided into sections, including introduction, literature review, methods, data, results, discussion, conclusion / suggestions for further study, and references.

Articles that interpret or analyze original research studies are considered secondary sources and are called "review articles". Examples include literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. Note that these articles also may be divided into sections. If there is a "methods" section, it will discuss how research articles (primary sources) were selected for review and analyzed.