A review article is an article that summarizes the current state of understanding on a topic within a certain discipline.[1][2] A review article is generally considered a secondary source since it may analyze and discuss the method and conclusions in previously published studies. It resembles a survey article or, in news publishing, overview article, which also surveys and summarizes previously published primary and secondary sources, instead of reporting new facts and results. Survey articles are however considered tertiary sources, since they do not provide additional analysis and synthesis of new conclusions. A review of such sources is often referred to as a tertiary review.
Academic publications that specialize in review articles are known as review journals. Review journals have their own requirements for the review articles they accept, so review articles may vary slightly depending on the journal they are being submitted to.
Review articles teach about:
the main people working in a field
recent major advances and discoveries
significant gaps in the research
current debates
suggestions of where research might go next
A meta-study summarizes a large number of already published experimental or epidemiological studies and provides statistical analysis of their result.
Review articles have increased in impact and relevance alongside the increase in the amount of research that needs to be synthesised.[3] They are a concise way of collating information for practitioners or academics that are not able to read the plethora of original research that is being published.
Categories
There are various categories of review articles, including narrative reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis. Review articles do not introduce new results, but rather state existing results, drawing conclusions on the results presented. Review articles can be categorised by using the same domain, underlying theory, or research method.[4] Sometimes these categories overlap.
Narrative reviews describe the published information on a theme or topic, but often does not include the methodological process involved in researching the topic. This can lead to narrative review articles being biased, missing important theoretical details pertaining to the original research, and innovative suggestions to further develop the field through further studies.[5]
A systematic review is more detailed and structured than a narrative review. It details the aims, hypothesis, and research method clearly so as to remain transparent and neutral.[6] This review format adheres to explicit criteria when selecting what research is included in the review. Common methods used to analyse selected research articles include text mining, citation, co-citation analysis, and topic modelling. These types of reviews also include a discussion on the theoretical implications of such research. Systematic reviews are more highly regarded and selected than narrative reviews due to their specificity and neutrality.[5] In the field of clinical research, the Cochrane organisation publishes systematic reviews (called Cochrane Reviews) on healthcare topics in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.[7]
A meta-analysis summarises quantitative results from a variety of research articles on a chosen topic. Given that these articles are formulating conclusions from multiple data sets, meta-analyses adhere to specific guidelines stipulated by the journals where they are published.[5] A meta-analysis lends itself more to statistical research, often converting the original research into one common metric referred to as "effect sizes", so as to easily identify patterns and anomalies among publications. Systematic reviews may include meta-analysis results.[6] The first edition of the Handbook of Research Synthesis aided the development of various analysis techniques that could be used in systematic review articles, thereby developing this form of literature.[6]
Exemplar of Alzheimer's Disease review article
Structure of a review article
Review articles initially identify the scope and aim.[4] If submitting the review article to a journal, the author must familiarise themselves with the theme of the journal as well as its conditions for submission. Some journals only accept review articles whereas others strictly publish original research.[8] Once the scope of the journal the author intends to submit to is identified, then identify the own personal scope and aim for the article. Experienced author, Angus Crake emphasises the need to define a scope that is "manageable, not too large or small" and to "focus on recent advances if the field is well established". This equates to a succinct, refreshing review article that adds a new perspective to the field whilst still being grounded in academia.
When finding sources, it is ideal to search through multiple databases and search engines. This ensures a wide berth of knowledge that presents multiple perspectives and allows for a reasonably balanced article. Some disciplines encourage the use of certain search engines. For example, science-based review articles heavily utilise Medline, Embase and CINAHL.
The title, abstract and keywords chosen bring awareness to the audience of the article, and should describe what the article is about. Search engine optimisation is important when publishing articles within a discipline where the literature is already saturated.
Like most academic articles, a review article includes an 'abstract' at the start. The 'Abstract' section of the review article should include: a synopsis of the topic being discussed or the issue studied, an overview of the study participants used in the empirical study being reviewed, a discussion of the results found and conclusions drawn by the scholars conducting the study, an explanation of how such findings have already or could potentially impact the theory and practice within the relevant discipline.[9] Within this section, context and the relevance of the review is included. The jargon used will depend on the intended audience.
The discussion section of the article presents multiple perspectives, stating limitations and potential extensions of the study being reviewed.[4] Also, within this section, similarities and dissonances among studies are stated.
The presentation of both the shortcomings and advancements of the research papers under review is important for comprehensiveness.[4] Daft (1985, p 198) emphasised this by saying "Previous work is always vulnerable. Criticising is easy, and of little value; it is more important to explain how research builds upon previous findings rather than to claim previous research is inadequate and incompetent."[10] Within this section of the review article is the suggestion of improvements and areas to further extend the research in reference.[11] The bibliography included at the end of review articles is equally important as it leads to further information on the study being discussed and is a way for academics and students alike to further their research. These are secondary sources.[12] Meyers and Sinding say,
"... The review selects from these (research) papers, juxtaposes them, and puts them in a narrative that holds them together… clearly the best reviews are not only concerned with what was done in the past, but also present a means to sculpt the future."[11]
Method of research
Reference management software such as Papers, EndNote, and Zotero are useful for when it comes to actually structuring and writing your review article.[13]
Peer review process
The process of review articles being peer-reviewed is critical to their credibility.[9] The peer review process is a way to ensure the article is as polished and accurate as possible. Most often, those reviewing the article are fellow academics or experts within the field under discussion in the paper. Sending out a peer review allows for gaps in the paper to be acknowledged so that the review can be as well-informed and comprehensive as possible. Peers will often recommend other research articles and studies to be included in the review, which can add strength to the article. Confusion amongst peers also indicates that your paper is not clear or lacking synergy.[14]
Relevance within academic literature
A key aim of review articles is to pose other potential avenues of research, stating the limitations of the empirical studies under review and how future studies of the same nature can be improved.[2] They also present findings of other studies within the same discipline, comparing results and drawing conclusions based on each individual finding.[15] Essentially, they are an evaluation of already published academic research.
Review articles do not introduce new results, but reiterate existing results and draw conclusions on the results presented across many research articles.[11] Review articles hold importance as they forecast to see new research opportunities by synthesising the existing research and identifying gaps in this research.[12] They were born out of the necessity to categorise and make sense of the ongoing plethora of research publications being released annually. Between 1991 and 2008, there were forty times more papers published within the field of biodiversity alone.[16] This overload of research papers makes it difficult for scientists and clinicians to remain up to date on current findings and developments within their discipline.
Difference from a research article
Research articles form the basis of review articles. Review articles use the original information presented in research articles to draw conclusions and pose suggestions for future research.[17]
Research and empirical articles are reporting the results of the author's study, thereby deeming it a primary source. They often include raw data and statistics, using the words participants, sample, subjects, and experiment frequently throughout. Review articles are academic but are not empirical. As opposed to presenting the results of a study (which would be a research article), review articles evaluate the results of already published studies.[15]
Key differences between review articles and research articles
A research article presents original information from the perspective of the author, whereas a review article analyses that statement and information.
A research article presents original content, whereas a review article synthesises that content and makes sense of it within the context of the discipline.
A research article has more narrow parameters on what is included (often depending on the journal it is being pitched to), whereas a review article is more open, being able to incorporate multiple research papers albeit still being contained within journal guidelines.[18]
Academic publishing
Review articles in academic journals analyze or discuss research previously published by others, rather than reporting new experimental results.[19][17] An expert's opinion is valuable, but an expert's assessment of the literature can be more valuable. When reading individual articles, readers could miss features that are apparent to an expert clinician-researcher. Readers benefit from the expert's explanation and assessment of the validity and applicability of individual studies.[20]
Review articles come in the form of literature reviews and, more specifically, systematic reviews; both are a form of secondary literature.[21] Literature reviews provide a summary of what the authors believe are the best and most relevant prior publications. Systematic reviews determine an objective list of criteria, and find all previously published original papers that meet the criteria; they then compare the results presented in these papers.
Some academic journals likewise specialize in review of a field; they are known as review journals.
The concept of "review article" is separate from the concept of peer-reviewed literature. A review article, even one that is requested or "peer-invited", will be either peer-reviewed or non-peer-reviewed depending on how submissions are treated.[22][23]
Impact
According to a 2021 study in the American Sociological Review, "papers cited by formal review articles generally experience a dramatic loss in future citations. Typically, the review gets cited instead of the specific articles mentioned in the review." The study identifies an exception to this trend: articles that are characterized by the review as being bridges between clusters of scholarship tend to get disproportionate future attention.[24] An analysis was conducted by McAlister et al. of review articles in six different medical journals. Of the six journals, less than 25% included a description, evaluation, or synthesis of evidence that had been provided. Only one-third of the articles had a clinical topic at the forefront, and only half of the articles presented quantitative data that support the suggestions made at the end of the piece.
Historically, review journals have a higher impact than primary research journals.[25] The year 2006 showed the top 10 most impactful journals to be compiled exclusively of review articles. In addition to this, review articles are cited more frequently than research articles.[3] There are currently no studies commenting on the effect of review articles on the impactfullness of journals that usually only publish research papers. This prevents one from saying with certainty that review articles could replace original research papers in large journals. Of the 538 review articles published in pathology journals within the year 2005, a mere 21% of them have been cited over ten times following their issuance. Furthermore, in a 2000-2006 comparison of journals; The American Journal of Pathology, The Journal of Pathology, and Laboratory Investigation, published both with and without review articles included, it was found that journals published with review articles had a greater impact on readers than those that did not include review articles.[26]
In terms of the growth of review articles, the rate has been exponential.[27] The number of papers on the topic of 'pathology' has increased 2.3 times between the years 1991 to 2006. Within the science discipline, the number of review articles in the Science Citation Index increased from 14,815 to 45,829 between 1991 and 2005. Following the same trend, the number of dedicated review journals within the Science Citation Index database grew from 163 to 198 between 1999 and 2006. Although, the percentage of review articles in review journals that formed the foundation of review literature decreased by 17% between 1999 and 2005.[8] This indicates that most review articles are being allocated to original research journals as opposed to strictly review journals. This is also dependent on the quality of the review articles published.
Separate to the quality of articles, the number of review articles published poses its own challenge to those searching for succinct but comprehensive research analysis. This makes it just as difficult for experts to navigate through the synthesised review articles as it is to sift through the primary research itself. Additionally, the inclusion of poorly referenced, inadequately researched, and overly biased review articles serve to muddy the water and make it even harder to determine quality writing.[15]
Social, behavioural and health science disciplines
Following the release of the Handbook of Research Synthesis, the use of review articles within the social, behavioural and health science disciplines has proliferated. 2007 statistics showed that systematic review articles were produced at a rate of 2,500 per year on the MEDLINE platform (Moher et al., 2007). The increase in prevalence of review articles within these disciplines can be attributed to the pull towards "evidence-based practice". This term was coined by Sackett (2000) and refers to the combination of available research, practitioner expertise, and consumer values. Due to the inundation of original research in the field, there is a need for review articles which highlight relevant studies, results and trends.[4] The varying methods and participants used among original research studies can provide inconsistent results, thereby presenting a challenge in synthesising information using one common metric. The conjunction of meta-analyses and systematic reviews has proven to be more effective in organising data and drawing conclusions, especially when it comes to clinical trials within the medical field.[6]
See also
Case series, sometimes called a clinical review because it reviews or summarizes the records for a series of patients at a single medical clinic
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work. It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review. It can also be used as a teaching tool to help students improve writing assignments.
Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error. These activities are characterized by accounting and controlling for biases. A research project may be an expansion of past work in the field. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole.
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication designed to further the progress of science by disseminating new research findings to the scientific community. These journals serve as a platform for researchers, scholars, and scientists to share their latest discoveries, insights, and methodologies across a multitude of scientific disciplines. Unlike professional or trade magazines, scientific journals are characterized by their rigorous peer review process, which aims to ensure the validity, reliability, and quality of the published content. With origins dating back to the 17th century, the publication of scientific journals has evolved significantly, playing a pivotal role in the advancement of scientific knowledge, fostering academic discourse, and facilitating collaboration within the scientific community.
Meta-analysis is a method of synthesis of quantitative data from multiple independent studies addressing a common research question. An important part of this method involves computing a combined effect size across all of the studies. As such, this statistical approach involves extracting effect sizes and variance measures from various studies. By combining these effect sizes the statistical power is improved and can resolve uncertainties or discrepancies found in individual studies. Meta-analyses are integral in supporting research grant proposals, shaping treatment guidelines, and influencing health policies. They are also pivotal in summarizing existing research to guide future studies, thereby cementing their role as a fundamental methodology in metascience. Meta-analyses are often, but not always, important components of a systematic review.
Cochrane is a British international charitable organisation formed to synthesize medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professionals, patients and policy makers. It includes 53 review groups that are based at research institutions worldwide. Cochrane has over 37,000 volunteer experts from around the world.
The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties provided by Cochrane and other organizations. At its core is the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systematic reviews and meta-analyses that summarize and interpret the results of medical research. The Cochrane Library aims to make the results of well-conducted clinical trials readily available and is a key resource in evidence-based medicine.
Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted on the Internet is often called "grey literature". Most scientific and scholarly journals, and many academic and scholarly books, though not all, are based on some form of peer review or editorial refereeing to qualify texts for publication. Peer review quality and selectivity standards vary greatly from journal to journal, publisher to publisher, and field to field.
Scientific literature encompasses a vast body of academic papers that spans various disciplines within the natural and social sciences. It primarily consists of academic papers that present original empirical research and theoretical contributions. These papers serve as essential sources of knowledge and are commonly referred to simply as "the literature" within specific research fields.
In published academic research, publication bias occurs when the outcome of an experiment or research study biases the decision to publish or otherwise distribute it. Publishing only results that show a significant finding disturbs the balance of findings in favor of positive results. The study of publication bias is an important topic in metascience.
An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an abstract always appears at the beginning of a manuscript or typescript, acting as the point-of-entry for any given academic paper or patent application. Abstracting and indexing services for various academic disciplines are aimed at compiling a body of literature for that particular subject.
An article or piece is a written work published in a print or electronic medium, for the propagation of news, research results, academic analysis or debate.
A literature review is an overview of the previously published works on a topic. The term can refer to a full scholarly paper or a section of a scholarly work such as a book, or an article. Either way, a literature review is supposed to provide the researcher/author and the audiences with a general image of the existing knowledge on the topic under question. A good literature review can ensure that a proper research question has been asked and a proper theoretical framework and/or research methodology have been chosen. To be precise, a literature review serves to situate the current study within the body of the relevant literature and to provide context for the reader. In such case, the review usually precedes the methodology and results sections of the work.
A systematic review is a scholarly synthesis of the evidence on a clearly presented topic using critical methods to identify, define and assess research on the topic. A systematic review extracts and interprets data from published studies on the topic, then analyzes, describes, critically appraises and summarizes interpretations into a refined evidence-based conclusion. For example, a systematic review of randomized controlled trials is a way of summarizing and implementing evidence-based medicine.
Scientific writing is writing about science, with an implication that the writing is by scientists and for an audience that primarily includes peers—those with sufficient expertise to follow in detail. Scientific writing is a specialized form of technical writing, and a prominent genre of it involves reporting about scientific studies such as in articles for a scientific journal. Other scientific writing genres include writing literature-review articles, which summarize the existing state of a given aspect of a scientific field, and writing grant proposals, which are a common means of obtaining funding to support scientific research. Scientific writing is more likely to focus on the pure sciences compared to other aspects of technical communication that are more applied, although there is overlap. There is not one specific style for citations and references in scientific writing. Whether you are submitting a grant proposal, literature review articles, or submitting an article into a paper, the citation system that must be used will depend on the publication you plan to submit to.
Medical literature is the scientific literature of medicine: articles in journals and texts in books devoted to the field of medicine. Many references to the medical literature include the health care literature generally, including that of dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and the allied health professions.
In epidemiology, reporting bias is defined as "selective revealing or suppression of information" by subjects. In artificial intelligence research, the term reporting bias is used to refer to people's tendency to under-report all the information available.
Scholarly peer review or academic peer review is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed by experts in the same field. Peer review is widely used for helping the academic publisher decide whether the work should be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, or rejected for official publication in an academic journal, a monograph or in the proceedings of an academic conference. If the identities of authors are not revealed to each other, the procedure is called dual-anonymous peer review.
PRISMA is an evidence-based minimum set of items aimed at helping scientific authors to report a wide array of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, primarily used to assess the benefits and harms of a health care intervention. PRISMA focuses on ways in which authors can ensure a transparent and complete reporting of this type of research. The PRISMA standard superseded the earlier QUOROM standard. It offers the replicability of a systematic literature review. Researchers have to figure out research objectives that answer the research question, states the keywords, a set of exclusion and inclusion criteria. In the review stage, relevant articles were searched, irrelevant ones are removed. Articles are analyzed according to some pre-defined categories.
Tom Jefferson is a British epidemiologist, based in Rome, Italy, who works for the Cochrane Collaboration. Jefferson is an author and editor of the Cochrane Collaboration's acute respiratory infections group, as well as part of four other Cochrane groups. He was also an advisor to the Italian National Agency for Regional Health Services.
Metascience is the use of scientific methodology to study science itself. Metascience seeks to increase the quality of scientific research while reducing inefficiency. It is also known as "research on research" and "the science of science", as it uses research methods to study how research is done and find where improvements can be made. Metascience concerns itself with all fields of research and has been described as "a bird's eye view of science". In the words of John Ioannidis, "Science is the best thing that has happened to human beings... but we can do it better."
↑ Webster, Jane; Watson, Richard T. (2002). "Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future: Writing a Literature Review". MIS Quarterly. 26 (2): xiii–xxiii. ISSN0276-7783. JSTOR4132319.
↑ De Lange, Deborah E. (2011). Research Companion to Green International Management Studies: A Guide for Future Research, Collaboration and Review Writing. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp.1–5. ISBN978-1-84980-727-2.
Woodward, A. M. (1977). "The roles of reviews in information transfer". Journal of the American Society for Information Science. 28 (3): 175–180. doi:10.1002/asi.4630280306.
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