How to write a scientific review paper

How to write a scientific review paper

Choose the topic and outline the organization of the review Once you start reading, there will be a temptation to include every piece of information that was ever published. Obviously this isn’t possible. So, define your scope from the onset So, let us start with understanding the main points of your work and clarifying how to write review of a research paper. Writing a review of a research paper means creating a scientific article with the analysis of a work. A review article is an article summarizing a research field, subfield, or a specific researcher’s work on a topic Duke Writing Studio 2 Try to describe the article in your own words first. Try to distill the article down to its “scientific essence.” Include all the key points and be accurate. A reader who has not read the original article should be able to understand your summary. Example of a well-written summary

How to Write a Scientific Review Article

How do I write a scientific review research paper? originally appeared on Quora : the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Barbara RobsonResearch Scientist, on Quora :. I have written a few review papers, and this is my approach. There are doubtless others that are equally effective, and some of these will be faster, but the approach that I will suggest is one that is thorough and defensible.

First, make sure that you are an expert in the subject and aware of the recent literature on the topic you have in mind. Consider working with co-authors so that together your expertise in the area is broad and deep, how to write a scientific review paper.

Next, read all the other review papers that have been published on related topics, or similar topics in related fields, over the previous two to three decades, to make sure that you understand what has been already done and to make sure that there is a gap in the existing reviews.

Then it is time to work out what question you will be trying to answer with your review. Some examples of questions that can be answered by review papers include:. Once you have your question, start reading the literature to gather evidence. It is a good idea to do this in a systematic way to make sure that you are not cherry-picking the literature to support a pre-concieved idea or to favor the research of one particular group.

Choose keywords carefully, choose a good database such as Web of Science, choose the time-frame that your review will cover, and read everything that is a match. Take notes and, if appropriate to your research question, keep track of your findings in a spreadsheet or database. You will not be citing everything that you read for your review, but it is a good idea to keep track of everything that you have read that matched your search criteria, and what you learned from it. At some point during this reading, you will start preparing the outline for your review paper.

Work out how you will structure the paper, what key points you want to highlight, and what the story is that you will be telling through your review. Often, good review papers will include figures that combine results from the literature that you have searched through to tell readers something new, either through new, how to write a scientific review paper, collated representations of data that show new, emergent relationships, or through new conceptual models that will help others to think about the topic in a new way and structure future research, how to write a scientific review paper.

Plan what these figures how to write a scientific review paper be in your paper. Also think carefully about who your intended audience will be. Is it aimed at new post graduate students who are just getting into the field and need somewhere to start? Is it aimed at your fellow expert researchers in the field, whose thinking you would like to influence? Is it aimed at industry practitioners, who may not be able to read all the literature themselves, but need a good summary of the evidence and how it should influence their practice?

Is it aimed at people in related fields who may be venturing into a new cross-disciplinary area? Know your goal and your audience and it should then be clear what to include in your review and what to leave out.

Finally, it is time to start writing. Like any other paper, this will need to have an Introduction, which explains what has been done before for example, in previous reviews and what has motivated your review paper i. what question are you trying to answer, and for whom. It may have Methods and Results sections, particularly if you have how to write a scientific review paper a systemmatic and quantitative approach to your review, or it may be a more narrative review, divided into sections that help you tell the story and elucidate the topic.

It should certainly have a Conclusions section: what should change as a result of what you have found and discussed in your review? As with any paper, aim to write clearly and in a way that will be interesting for your intended audience. Aim to write in a way that makes it easy to find and understand your key messages, even for skim-readers.

Aim to be concise but to back up everything you say with evidence. Once you have this done and have asked a friendly colleague to look over it and give you feedback, you will be ready to submit the review to a good journal in your field. Make sure that it is a journal that does publish reviews, and consider sending the editor a query first if you are not sure whether they publish reviews that have not been solicited.

This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and how to write a scientific review paper understand the world. More questions:. Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

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How to Write a Scientific Review Paper - Scientific Writing by Dr. Khurram Joya

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How To Write A Scientific Review Research Paper

So, let us start with understanding the main points of your work and clarifying how to write review of a research paper. Writing a review of a research paper means creating a scientific article with the analysis of a work. A review article is an article summarizing a research field, subfield, or a specific researcher’s work on a topic Sep 22,  · Using a copy of the manuscript that I first marked up with any questions that I had, I write a brief summary of what the paper is about and what I feel about its Duke Writing Studio 2 Try to describe the article in your own words first. Try to distill the article down to its “scientific essence.” Include all the key points and be accurate. A reader who has not read the original article should be able to understand your summary. Example of a well-written summary