Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility. In academia peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication.

Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs. The following terms could be used to make these distinctions, but generally those in any given field just rely on the generic term. Even when qualifiers are applied, they may be used inconsistently. For example, Medical Peer review has been used to refer specifically to clinical peer review, to the peer evaluation of clinical teaching skills for both physicians and nurses, to scientific peer review of journal articles, and to the secondary rating of the clinical value of articles in peer-reviewed journals. Moreover, "medical peer review" has been used by the American Medical Association to refer not only to the process of improving quality and safety in health care organizations, but also to the process by which adverse actions involving clinical privileges or professional society membership may be pursued. Thus, the terminology has poor standardization and specificity, particularly as a database search term.