Writing a review paper.

[Chiragdubey]

Hey there.

I was just wondering if there is a particular pattern for preparing a review paper?

The theoretical and experimental papers usually have a specific pattern, but I am not sure about review papers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, guys.

Thanks.

[CharonY]

Are we talking about publications?

 

It really depends on the type of review. Obviously the intro should lay out what the review is about.I is it an exhaustive review on one topic, does it provide a general broad overview, is it a critical review, does it focus on outcomes or methods, is it more a perspectives paper, etc.

How the rest is crafted is highly dependent on the focus of the topic. What most have in common is at least a rough outline of the state of the art and then expand or dive into details from there. The important bit is that all good reviews at one point or another start to narrow down the scope to the critical lit that are to be discussed and put into perspective.

The latter is often lacking if someone junior is writing a review (or worse, if it is from a student and the PI is either not familiar with the topic or just does not care).

[ajb]

My suggestion is to find a review paper in your field and use that as a guide. It would also be prudent to have a look at the journal(s) you are thinking of submitting to and find recent reviews that they have published. Note that not all journals will publish long review papers.