The first step of learning how to write a review article isn’t gathering a pen and paper or booting your computer. The first step is understanding the definition of a review article.
What is a Review Article
At its most basic, a review article is a summary of a topic or a field of study. Review articles take previously-published research and synthesize it into a description of the current understanding of the topic. For example, a review article on cancer treatment would bring all the research (sometimes numbering thousands of papers) together to outline the current state of the field.
Review articles are useful because they organize big quantities of literature, identify patterns and trends, expose research gaps, and propose areas of new research.
The review article should never be confused with the article review which focuses on the merits of a single article. An easy way to remember the difference is that a review article discusses many while an article review discusses one.
Now that we’ve established what makes a review article what it is, we can delve deeper into how to write one.
How to Write a Review Article
1) Prepare
Preparing can often be the most difficult part but doing a good job here can make the rest of the process easier. First, and perhaps most importantly, narrow the topic to something manageable. Endeavoring to summarize the field of physics would be an exercise in futility but summarizing the current understanding of the Higgs Boson would be a much more manageable task.
During this step, you’ll also be doing a lot of reading. In your search for literature sources, you can also work to refine your topic into its final form. It’s also helpful to note and prepare any illustrations (i.e., tables, maps, figures, etc.) you think may be useful in the completed article.
Once you’ve completed the bulk of the preparation phase, make sure you get some feedback from a competent practitioner in your field.
2) Develop
Establish a structure for the article (i.e., subject matter, experimental procedure, chronological) and then prepare an outline. Your outline doesn’t have to be definitive at this point; it’s more of a road map that serves to break the writing into manageable chunks.
Once you’ve got a general outline, go back through and plan the content of each section making notes on what goes where. Though composing an outline may seem like waste of time, it’s really not. Remember that the outline is like a road map that gets you from beginning to an end. It doesn’t show you all the sights (details of the article) along the way but it can keep you focused on the end goal and prevent you from getting lost in the mass of words to come (sometimes upwards of 40,000).
When you’ve produced a detailed outline, ask for more feedback from an advisor, mentor, or colleague.
3) Write
Review articles in different fields often have different structures (and different names for those structures) so make sure you are familiar with the format appropriate to your topic. Though more sections may be necessary (i.e., methods), all review articles will include the following general information: an abstract, an introduction, the body of the article, and the conclusion(s).
When you’re ready to begin writing, draft the text in the following order:
1) body
2) conclusion(s)
3) introduction
4) abstract
The reason for this is that the body of the article will heavily influence, if not completely determine, both the abstract and the introduction. Once the body and the conclusion has been written, then go back and write the introduction followed by the abstract (summary).
4) Revise
When the first (or third or fourth) draft is complete, ask for feedback from someone knowledgeable in your field and then continue revising the text until it is as near perfect as possible. Make sure to inspect and revise everything: the body; the conclusion; the introduction; the abstract; the title; any tables, figures, legends, and illustrations; citations and references.
When you have revised the article to your liking, go back through and give the text a thorough proofreading. Be sure to correct all grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes in the process.
Finally, make sure that all the formatting and the layout for the article is correct.
A review article that you’ve composed is an excellent accomplishment to have in your portfolio. Though it may seem daunting at first, don’t get overwhelmed by the length. Breaking the process into definable parts can make everything go smoother.
