Why write a review article? If you’ve been working on a topic for a while, writing a review article gives you the opportunity to share what you’ve learnt. This will then be incredibly useful for other researchers, introducing them to the key existing literature and summarizing the current state of the field.
A scientific literature review is an important part of academic research as it narrows the current knowledge in a field to examine the latest publications’ strengths and weaknesses. A scientific review also helps researchers understand the implications of previously published works.
If your college requires you to write an undergrad dissertation, then chances are that they want you to write a literature review. If you’re writing a literature review for academic purposes, then this document demonstrates that you have learned from the previous publications and are ready to work on new ideas.
The review provides a summary, description, and critical evaluation of a topic, issue, or area of research. It should not be confused with a book review, which summarizes a book and has a less structured format. The author of a literature review is usually giving feedback on published works. What Your Literature Review Should Include.
A review article usually starts with an abstract, which I recommend that you write last. You're going to have an introduction section that clearly states the aim of the review. In my article on eating disorders in athletes, I started with some historical papers, I went back to the 1980s, where the first papers on eating disorders in ballet dancers were published.
A literature review does the following: It situates your research focus within the context of the wider academic community in your field. It reports your critical review of the relevant literature. It identifies a gap within that literature that your research will attempt to address. To some extent the literature review can become a project in.
Writing a literature review is often the most daunting part of writing an article, book, thesis, or dissertation. “The literature” seems (and often is) massive. I have found it helpful to be as systematic as possible when completing this gargantuan task.