User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I’ve chosen a book entitled “Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada” by Andy Mackinnon, Linda Kershaw, John Arnason, Patrick Owen, Amanda Karst and Fiona Chambers to use as an ecological reference. This book focuses on the uses of plants, which is of personal interest, but more importantly from an ecological standpoint, has detailed descriptions of the plants, their flowers and fruit as well as where they grow, including moisture preferences and soil type. The book contains references, and the authors are assumed experts that are well decorated with degrees and experience. Based on what we have learned about classifying scientific information, I would classify this book as being a non-peer reviewed academic material.
ok, you probably got it right and gave the reasons it is academic vs. not, but did not lay out why it is non-peer reviewed, which is of course probably because the book does not speak to referees reviewing before publication. Does the book have a bibliography of other references or relied on the plant expertise of the authors? That is another clue.
That is correct. I categorized it as non peer reviewed because there were no referees reviewing it before publishing. There is however a bibliography of references. Would this count toward the peer review criteria then?