For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been sharing my expertise in academic writing, focusing mostly on how to write research papers and publish them in open access journals. But as you may know, writing research papers isn’t the only way to contribute to the scientific community.

Another popular way to increase your track record and become recognised in your scientific community is to write review articles. Having written several review papers myself, I must admit that these tend to take more time to write. Still, there are some opportunities during your PhD and research project where you can actually write a review article while working on other tasks for your project. Want to learn why a critical review of the current state of the literature can be useful for your research project and track record?

Read on! 

What is a review paper?

A review article is nothing else than a comprehensive literature review of the current state of the art in your research area. This is clear from the definition given by Taylor and Francis: 

“A review article, also called a literature review, is a survey of previously published research on a topic. It should give an overview of current thinking on the theme and, unlike an original research article, won’t present new experimental results.” 

Review articles tend to focus on specific themes in the existing literature that are of particular interest to the scientific community. But the main role of this type of academic writing isn’t solely to provide an overview of the current state in your field. Instead, the review article aims to provide a critical review of the secondary data. 

What does this mean?

It means that you need to focus your review and writing process around the issues, challenges and limitations in your review article. You’ll rarely include primary sources in your review article, although some review journals will encourage the inclusion of primary sources. 

Why to write a review paper?

Review articles have a particular place in the scientific community. Why? As I mentioned above, the review articles present a critical review of the current state of the art. This means that such literature reviews will identify trends, challenges, issues, discrepancies in the current literature. In academia, these are usually called “knowledge gaps” or “research gaps”. I’m sure you came across this. 

Why would you decide to write a review article during your research project? There a couple of good reasons for this. 

First, by writing review article, you’ll get a much deeper understanding of the research field. This is because to publish such a piece of academic writing, you really need to provide new perspectives and/or insights based on the current literature. 

Second, for most research degrees, you’re expected to perform a comprehensive literature review anyway. Usually, literature reviews are seen by researchers as something that you have to do and that there’s no value out of it. So it may seem to be a daunting challenge. But actually, if you decide to transform the literature review for your project into a review article, your writing process will be much more focused and you’ll feel more motivated – after all, you’ll get your work published. 

Third, taking a critical approach to reviewing the current literature can stimulate your imagination and creativity. It may help you to come up with new research ideas for research papers and grant applications. 

And finally, publishing a review article in a respected academic journal can help you establish yourself as an expert in your research field and support developing your track record. 

What is the difference between a research paper and a review paper?

Most of the academic journals accept review articles along with more conventional research papers. There are also journals like Physical Review Journals, Physical Review Letters and Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews that publish solely review papers. 

So what is the difference between a research paper and a review article? 

Well, the aim of a research paper is to report new and original research that you performed in your research programme. This means that the research paper should include mostly primary sources or data, although it may include secondary data too. 

As we discussed above, the aim of a research paper is to critically appraise the current state of the art and identify research gaps. This means that the review paper should include mostly secondary data, although it may include some primary sources of data too. 

What are the elements of a review paper?

A well-written review paper will contain the following elements:

• Introduction that provides relevant context, background and rationale for the review, as well as the contribution that the review makes to the current state of the art
• Methods that presents how data was collected and analysed
• Thematic sections that provide a comprehensive critical review of the published literature with a focus on trends and challenges a specific theme
• General discussion that summarises the current trends related to the topic of the review article and provides a perspective of how the research field will develop
• Conclusion that summarises the key outcomes and contributions of the review

How to write a review paper?

Similarly to writing the literature reviews, which I discussed in details earlier, you will follow the following steps when writing review articles: 

Step 1: Why do you want to write a review article? Specify the motivation for writing review article to know why you’re doing this and what you want to get out of it. 

Step 2: What type of literature review you need? Decide whether you need traditional, systematic, integrative, argumentative or theoretical review. For explanations, check my previous article here. 

Step 3: Identify keywords. Decide the scope and focus of your literature review, and select relevant keywords. 

Step 4: Search for relevant sources. Once you know the keywords you’re going to use, you need to select the high-quality sources that you’ll review. 

Step 5: Outline and write a focused account for selected categories. Categorise your sources by theme, theory, methodology and so on, and review them accordingly to understand each category. 

Step 6: Outline and write a focused account for selected categories. Develop an outline for your review article to ensure consistency and logical flow of information. 

Step 7: Reflect on the current state of the art for each category. Use the data you’ve collected to identify any knowledge gaps or research gaps. 

Step 8: Reflect on the key learning. The ultimate goal of the review article is to find research gaps and identify future trends for your research field. Therefore, reflecting on the key findings and providing a perspective for the further research direction will definitely add value to your review article. 

Can a review paper influence the world?

Here’s something I must share with you. A single paper is unlikely to change the world, especially when it’s a review article. Citing the classic, it’s sad but true.

But…a well-researched and written review article will be a valuable resource for you and your peers. This is because it will concisely represent the current state of the art, identify future research direction and challenges. Essentially, a high-quality review article can be a gold mine of research ideas. 

A final thought…

The writing process for review article can be daunting and challenging, but it’s definitely worth the effort.

From a better understanding of the research field, through building recognition in the scientific community, to generating new ideas for research, there are many benefits of including a review paper as a part of your publication portfolio. 

Have you already written a review article? Please share it in the comment! 

If you’re looking for tools that can help you with your literature review, make sure you check our list of tools that will supercharge your review. Also, check how to avoid the key mistakes to avoid in your academic writing and how to avoid plagiarism.