A peer-reviewed journal requires that an article submitted for publication in it be reviewed or edited by three experts in the relevant field of research. Some journal indexes permit you to narrow your search to articles published in peer-reviewed journals. The reference librarian has several directories which list the journals which are peer-reviewed. You should be able to identify these types of journals when selecting articles. Scholarly or academic journals have few glossy illustrations and possibly no advertisements.
Scholarly journals are often concerned with very specific subjects, indicated by their titles.
The authors use a sophisticated vocabulary characteristic of researches for that field of study. The authors always cite their sources. There may be an abstract of the article's principle findings at the beginning. Scholarly journals are governed by an editorial board of experts. The articles are peer-reviewed by a panel of experts.