But your readers may not be as familiar with the intricacies of the topic. You are an expert in the field – that’s why you are writing a review. It is important to manage readers’ expectations early on by telling them why you have chosen to write this review right now and highlight how your article differs from other existing work. Starting with an outline and knowing exactly how you want to lead your readers through your narrative (being aware how their “journey” should develop) not only makes your article much clearer and easier to follow, it also helps you decide what should and should not be included in the review.
You also need to justify why you should write it. In the proposal, you need to make clear why the topic is important – and why it is important now. Doing so also gives editors the opportunity to help shape your idea into something that delivers powerfully for the journal, which also means a higher chance of publication for your paper. You can save yourself a lot of time by reaching out to the editors of the journal in question to see whether or not it’s worth writing a full-length piece for their journals. If possible, submit a proposal before writing the manuscript.Therefore, make sure you include your point(s) of view including a comparison, critique and assessment of the studies you are reviewing and/or your ideas for future experiments. A review article should form more than just the sum of its parts: readers should learn something(s) that they couldn’t get just by reading the references. The most important question you need to ask yourself before proposing or writing a review is whether you have something new to say.
Below are the key take-aways from the experts. To help illuminate this phenomenon, Matt Pavlovich and Lindsey Drayton, editors in the Trends reviews journals group with Cell Press, offered their editorial perspective on what they look for in a review in Researcher Academy’s latest webinar. Yet, the key elements for a compelling review article are still a mystery for many researchers, especially those in the early stages of their careers. Done well, a good review article can end up becoming the definitive “go to” guide on a topic, forming the backbone of reading lists and appearing as a reference in countless books and articles globally. It is an opportunity for you to contribute to the development of your field by creating a synthesis of the best resources available and potential new research areas to explore in the future. Writing a review article is about more than seizing on an interesting topic and gathering the relevant references.