What is Review Article? How to Write a Review Article?

A review article or Literature review is a detailed study on previously reported research on a specific topic. It should mention the summary of previous studies on the topic with the advantages and disadvantages. Different from the original research article, Review article will not present novel experiments and results. Review Article is all about the previous literature discussion.

The main objective of the review article is to present critical discussion of the data from the already existing literature. Literature review can analyze the potential areas of the research to investigate in future. Most of the time it can make conclusions on the basis of the previous research data.

Reviewing work can be the ideal way to broaden and test your knowledge base. If reviewing seems daunting or you feel stuck when writing articles, hopefully, this blog post can offer guidance in getting things moving forward – keep in mind that as an experienced specialist in your field, you are now skilled enough to write reviews! Writing reviews provides you with an opportunity to sharpen your writing, read quickly through books in libraries, and synthesize vast amounts of data that constitute scientists’ toolsets.

As an undergraduate student in collaboration with my mentor, I wrote a review piece regarding histone modifications within T and B cells. Naturally, my first step was searching for “how to write a scientific review,” and then reading through all available results for guidance. Here I share my method, but please be aware that this review wasn’t written from scratch by me but is simply meant as an indicator that no expert need be required in your review writing experience!

Main Components of Review Article or Literature Review

• Provides detailed study on a specific Topic
• Elaborates the Knowledge on the Current topic
• It can identify the research gaps for future studies
• It presents the Overall methods used in previous literature and also the techniques of the research.

Reasons for Writing a Review Article

If you are working on a specific topic and you have read a lot of literature about that, then writing a review article on that topic will give you the best chance to share with new researchers what you have already learned.

Literature review articles are immensely fruitful for new researchers, providing them the new information on the reported research. It also gives an overall summary of the existing literature data.

The procedure of writing a review article on a selected topic can also be a useful way to speed up your knowledge on a topic that you are not familiar with before.

You may also be interested in reading how to write a response to reviewers’ comments.

How to start writing a review article?

Following are the eight key points while writing a review :

#1- Select the Topic

The first and foremost thing is deciding on a topic you are going to write on. Start writing an overview of the topic and why it is necessary to write on that specific topic. What is its importance in the research or literature? Try to gather enough literature to give an introduction on the topic and make it strong enough to reach out to the bigger audience and their interest. This will increase its impact and scope.

#2- Select a Journal

Make it clear that you have read the journal’s terms and conditions where you are going to submit your review article. Every journal has its terms and conditions for accepting articles and review papers. Some journals only accept the full research papers and some do accept review articles. So it is very important to go through different journals before writing or submitting your article.

#3- Define your Articles Scope Area

Define the scope of the topic of your review article and all the research queries you are going to answer within the review article. Also, make it clear that this literature review has the potential to contribute something new to the research area.

#4- Finding Sources of Review Article

You need to collect the data to evaluate the scope and discussion on the review topic that you have selected. you can find previous literature from Web of Science, Science Direct, Nature, Springer, or other research article publishers.

#5- Write a Title of the Topic, Abstract and Keywords

Spend some quality time on deciding an attractive Title for the review article, Then comes the abstract which is the main part of the whole article where you have to summarize your article in a few lines. Give enough time to write an effective abstract to capture the attention of the readers.

Then use those keywords that are very trending and readers do a search on Google and other research article publishers’ websites.

#6- Discussion (Critical Discussion)

It is best when you critically discuss the previous reports. You can highlight the important points and go deep into the topic to find their pros and cons.

#7- Summary

Summarize the whole article in a paragraph or so. You can discuss the potential of future research on the selected topic.

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#8- Review Article

Give to any of your friend that has some knowledge on the topic or ask your supervisor to review your article before submitting it to the journal.

you may also be interested in reading How to Write a Good Synopsis for Thesis. Step by Step process