How to Write and Publish a Review Article

Some journals only publish review articles and others do not accept them. The first step is to determine what type of paper is best for your job and what you want to achieve. The following list contains the most important and peer-reviewed types of papers in the natural sciences: The PRISMA statement[6], developed to write a well-designed review article, contains a 27-point checklist (Table 1). It makes sense to meet the requirements of these points when creating a review article or meta-analysis. Thus, creating an understandable article with high-quality scientific content may be possible. Create a summary of the article by proofreading what the author wrote. Write down the relevant facts and results of the article. Include the author`s conclusions in this section. After deciding what you want to convey to the reader, Anh reminds you to “make sure you know of other critics in this area over the past few years to make sure yours offers a unique angle on the topic.” It`s worth reviewing the literature once you have a good idea of the audience, review requirements, and scope, just to make sure you don`t accidentally write the same article someone else published a few months ago. As you continue reading your article, organize your thoughts into coherent sections in an outline.

As you read, write down important facts, messages, or contradictions. Identify gaps and strengths in your publication. Start mapping your plan accordingly. Spend time writing an effective headline, summary, and keywords. This will help maximize the visibility of your article online and ensure that the right readers find your search. Your title and summary should be clear, concise, accurate and informative. Danielle Loughlin, editor-in-chief of Trends in Cell Biology, puts it well: “First, define the overall purpose of the manuscript. What would you like to convey to the reader? What are the main points you would like to address? Claudia Willmes of Trends in Molecular Medicine agrees: “Start with the motivation you`re writing this review for and make sure it`s your common thread. Claudia explains this by encouraging the authors to think about the origin of the idea of the journal.

For example, if you were invited to write by an editor after giving a lecture, it makes sense to write the review with a message similar to the lecture. Just like research papers, there`s no good place to start writing, but the introduction has often come across as a reasonable starting point. Consider the right level of specificity and also think about your audience: If you`re writing a review of algae-based biofuels for a biomolecular engineering audience, you probably don`t need to motivate the whole concept of biofuels. Does a literature search need an introduction? Yes, always start with an overview of the topic and provide context in which you explain why a review of the topic is necessary. Gather research to inform your introduction and make it broad enough to reach a wide audience of non-specialists. This will help maximize its wider relevance and impact. “Once you`ve written the basic exam section, take a step back and look for common trends that are emerging. Highlight significant progress that has been made and areas where more focused research can have a significant impact. These are crucial to show where the terrain is going and the common pitfalls that people face.

» Complete this checklist before submitting your review article: co-authors make intellectual contributions to the analysis of the data and contribute to the interpretation of the data. They check every paper design. They must all be able to present the paper and its conclusions, defend the implications and discuss the limitations of the study. There are important differences between systematic and non-systematic reviews, resulting in particular from the methods used in describing the sources of the literature. A non-systematic review involves using articles that have been collected over years with recommendations from your peers, while a systematic review is based on the difficulties of searching and finding the best possible research that answers the questions asked at the beginning of the review. Before considering how to create a journal article, it makes more sense to examine the motivation behind writing the journal article in question. The fundamental reason for writing a review article is to create a readable synthesis of the best literary sources on a research request or an important topic. This simple definition of a review article contains the following key elements: The format of the article should always match the citation style requested by your professor. If you`re not sure, look for clarification on the preferred format and ask them to clarify other pointers to properly complete the formatting of an item review. Before you even start writing, make sure you have a good idea of who will be reading the article. It may seem obvious, but maintaining a consistent tone throughout the manuscript will save you a lot of time revising it. Is this a tutorial review for people who are completely new to the field? You need to include a lot of context and define the terms that seem obvious to you.

A historical perspective? Don`t be afraid to go far back in the literature to flagship publications. A digest or a highlight? Worry less about gathering all the articles on the topic and focus more on what the most interesting results are saying right now. If your professor doesn`t want a summary section or a section on personal criticism, you`ll need to delete those parts of your letter. As with other tasks, an article review should include an introduction, body, and conclusion. Therefore, you can consider dividing your plan by these sections, as well as by subheadings in the body. If you`re having trouble with the pre-writing and brainstorming process for this task, look for a sample sketch. “Even if the actual character design is postponed to a later date,” advises Moran Furman, editor-in-chief of Trends in Neurosciences, “I think it can be helpful to think about the numbers early on.” Anh agrees: “It`s helpful to conceptualize numbers early on, as diagrams can say more than a thousand words and help target your text. Moran also advises against what we call “Frankenfigures” around the cell press office: “The numbers that work well in journal or opinion articles are those that summarize results or highlight new ideas, rather than simply reproducing data from primary sources.” The purpose of writing a literature review is to provide a critical appraisal of available evidence from existing studies. Review articles can identify potential areas of research to explore next, and sometimes draw new conclusions from existing data. An indispensable part of the peer review process is to distinguish between good and bad research results, and results should be based as much as possible on better-qualified research. To achieve this goal, you need to know the best possible evidence for each type of question.

The first component of quality is the overall planning/design of the study. There are variations in the overall planning or design of a cohort study, case series or normal study. Most authors get along well with the scientific overview and the overview of the article. But the single selling point often needs a little more encouragement. As a writer, this should be the most exciting part: it`s your chance to tell the world why they should care about what you have to say. If you can express this concisely and persuasively, while explaining how your review will take the conversation beyond any other criticism that might have been published on the topic, then you will be able to succeed while writing the rest of the manuscript. For the specification of the important questions to be answered, the number of references to be consulted must be more or less determined. Discussions should take place with colleagues in the same area of interest and time should be set aside to resolve the problem(s). While it may seem very tempting to write the review article in a timely manner, the time you spend identifying important issues will not be a waste of time. [9] Are you looking for the right place to publish your work? Find out here if a De Gruyter magazine could be the right one. This is the most common piece of advice I have received.

Claudia says, “Plan a structure to see what are the basic topics that need to be covered in special sections,” while Danielle`s advice is to “do an overview, list important areas or publications” and Kushi “give an overview of the main subtopics that the article will cover.” Lindsey Drayton, Editor-in-Chief of Trends in Cognitive Sciences, and I also covered the importance of the plan in our journal writing webinar, and you may even have created a plan if you suggested the review to the editor. Well, it may seem obvious, but before submitting a scientific paper, always make sure that it perfectly reflects the research you are doing and that you present it in the most professional way possible. Incomplete or poorly submitted manuscripts can cause a lot of frustration and hassle for editors who probably don`t even bother to waste reviewers` time! Pengfei Kong, editor-in-chief of Trends in Parasitology, suggests thinking about the scope of the journal based on audience expertise: if it`s aimed at readers who are actively engaged in a particular field, then you can go further, whereas if you want it to be more accessible to the general public, You should go further.