Review Article & its

Structure

Nutan Prakash

• How To Write A Review Article

• The Structure of Your Review Article

•Your Second Reader

• The Revision

• Recommended Readings

Outline

Before starting to write• What kind of publication is it? E.g. Journal paper, review

paper, conference proceedings paper, etc.? • Contents, format (& partly style) differ. Possibilities:– Journal paper: presents final original results, careful

description of technique etc., refereed – Review paper: summarizes, evaluates and synthesizes results

already published elsewhere.– Proceedings paper: Often preliminary results, usually short,

sometimes speculative (not as important as a journal paper)– Conference abstract: Short summary of results– PhD thesis: Combination of above. 1st chapter like review paper,

later chapters like journal papers (or parts of journal papers).

• The number and quality of the publications is an important, possibly the most important factor deciding the career of a scientist, practically a matter of life and death.

Publish or perish!

• Specifically for our Research School, publication is a requirement for successful completion of thesis.

Review Article

A review article is tutorial in that the author:

• Defines and clarifies the problem

• Summarizes previous investigations in order to inform the reader of the state of current research• Identifies relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the literature, and• Suggests the next step or steps in solving

How To Write A Review Article

Step 1. Getting StartedStep 2. Writing as Critical ThinkingStep 3. What's the Point?

Why are these articles interesting to you?

• Why did you choose to write about them?

• Do they present a new procedure?

• Is there a significant gap in the literature?

• Do these articles contribute important new knowledge to the field?

• Are these articles mistaken?

• Are you disagreeing with them?

Step 4. ArgumentStep 5. AudienceStep 6. Pre-Writing and Brainstorming

Overview of Peer Review ProcessPaper Submitted

Initial Decision by Editor

Confirmation of Receipt

Rejection Decide to Review

Assign Reviewers

Reviewers Accept Invite

Reviews Completed

RejectAccept

Notification to Author

Revise

Paper sent to Publisher

AcceptRevise

Revision Received

Revision Checked

B. The Structure of Your Review Article

Step 1. Abstract• The abstract will be a brief synthesis of the entire project, the teaser, which will help readers determine immediately whether your review article can be useful. • It should also be interesting enough to warrant a reading of the entire article.

Step 2. IntroductionStep 3. ClaimStep 4. ReasonStep 5. EvidenceStep 6. Discussion

C. Your Second Reader

? Is it interesting?

? Does it make sense?

? Does it have too much jargon?

? Does it flow? (Does one section acknowledge that there was a section

before it and that there will be one after it?)

? Is the review article in a logical right order?

? Does the review article raise and answer the question "So What?“? Do you feel persuaded to the writer's point of view?

? If you are not persuaded, do you at least understand what the writer was

attempting to persuade you to do or think?

D. The Revision

E. Recommended Reading

Publish and perish“The Seven Deadly Sins”

1. Data manipulation, falsification

2. Duplicate manuscripts

3. Redundant publication

4. Plagiarism

5. Author conflicts of interest

6. Animal use concerns

7. Humans use concerns