How to Write a Review of an Article

And then y'all've been invited to write a review article.

Congratulations! Some editor, somewhere, thinks you're the all-time person for the task, with the right expertise and something interesting to say. Maybe you've done your homework and read our advice for writing a review article that people will read, or possibly y'all've watched our webinar "An editor's guide to writing a review article" and read our answers to the audition'south questions. Yous've thought through the arguments that y'all want to make, and your favorite citation manager is full of the latest research on the topic.

At present what?

Settling down to concern and putting words on a page—taking that invitation from an editor and making it your ain or fleshing out your proposal into a existent article—can be intimidating. Simply we're here to help: I've asked the Trends editors, and a few other reviews editors from around Cell Printing, to share their all-time tips to go from a blinking cursor on a bare page to a real manuscript.

Empathise your audience

Even before you start writing, brand sure you have a good sense of who is going to read the article. It may sound like an obvious point, simply keeping a consistent tone throughout the manuscript is going to salvage you lot a lot of fourth dimension in revision. Is this a tutorial review, aimed toward people who are totally new to the field? Y'all'll want to include lots of context and define terms that may seem obvious to y'all. A historical perspective? Don't be agape to dig far back in the literature to the seminal publications. A assimilate or highlight piece? Worry less near assembling every single paper on the topic and focus more on what the nigh interesting handful of results say right at present.

Pengfei Kong, editor of Trends in Parasitology, suggests thinking about the telescopic of the review every bit a role of the expertise of the audition: if it's meant for readers actively engaged in a specific field, then yous can become deeper, whereas if yous desire it to exist more accessible to a general audience, you should go wider. Former Cell Stem Cell reviews editor Anh Nguyen besides advises yous to "make sure your article has the type of breadth and depth that the periodical typically publishes."

Sympathize what the journal wants

About journals, including the Trends journals, have a dense array of author guidelines that provide instructions on everything from how to format a glossary (put each term in bold the first time it appears in the main text) to how long an abstract can be (strictly no more than 120 words for longer formats and l words for shorter formats) to how to prepare print-quality figures (300 dpi, .tif format preferred). These items are important and may delay or prevent publication if they're not followed, simply they're things that tin exist addressed equally you lot're polishing a manuscript for submission.

Before you start writing, though, get a general sense of what the journal expects from y'all. In particular, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences editor Kushi Mukherjee emphasizes how understanding the journal'south length requirements earlier y'all showtime writing can prevent pregnant frustration later on on. Trends journals advise submitting Review articles between 3,000 and 3,500 words on initial submission. If y'all keep this goal in heed from the beginning and terminate up a few hundred words long or brusque, then it's relatively straightforward to cutting or add to achieve the advisable length. But if you choose to ignore the instruction and terminate upward with a nine,000-word boundness, then you'll have to discard 60% of your effort, in many cases before the journal will fifty-fifty transport your manuscript out for review.

Figure out what you desire to say

Danielle Loughlin, editor of Trends in Cell Biology, puts it well: "First, define the overall goal of the manuscript. What do you lot want to convey to the reader? What are the major points that you want to brand?" Claudia Willmes from Trends in Molecular Medicine agrees: "Start with the motivation for why you're writing this review and make sure this is your running thread." Claudia explains this by encouraging authors to think dorsum to where the idea for the review came from in the first place. For case, if an editor invited yous to write after listening to you give a talk, and then information technology makes sense to write the review with a similar take-home message to the talk.

After you've decided what to convey to the reader, Anh reminds y'all to "make sure you are aware of other reviews in this area over the past few years to ensure yours offers a unique angle on the topic." It's worth re-examining the literature once you have a skillful sense of audience, periodical requirements, and telescopic just to brand sure that y'all're not inadvertently writing the same article that someone else published a few months ago.

Make an outline

This is the unmarried near mutual piece of advice I got. Claudia says, "plan a structure to see what are the core topics that need to be addressed in dedicated sections," while Danielle's communication is to "create an outline, bullet signal major areas or publications," and Kushi's is to "write out an outline of main subtopics that the commodity will cover." Trends in Cognitive Sciences editor Lindsey Drayton and I also covered the importance of the outline in our webinar on writing reviews, and you may have even created an outline if you proposed the review to the editor.

Nearly every editor who shared their thoughts brought up outlining in some capacity, then take heed. An outline doesn't have to be a hierarchical list of bullet points, though information technology certainly can be if that'south what will help yous organize. Y'all might also consider a heed map or other diagram or simple clusters of publications that are related to each other. To structure smaller sections or single paragraphs, Trends in Microbiology editor Gail Teitzel (inspired by her ix-year-old son's homework) suggests that nutrient-themed graphical organizers can be surprisingly useful for developed writers too.

Why outline? As Lindsey talked nigh in the webinar, the outline helps yous understand the relationship between the different parts of the review and to elevate your review from a drove of results into a compelling narrative. Understanding which publications you desire to cite in which department, or which elements of your argument you lot want to advance in which guild, earlier you lot begin writing will allow you lot focus on how to tell the most interesting story possible. Outlining beforehand will also assist you to spot structural weaknesses in the manuscript before they get problems: if what you idea could be a main section merely ends up with 1 paragraph's worth of content, you might consider reorganizing to eternalize the department or motility that paragraph elsewhere.

Think well-nigh figures

"Even if the actual pattern of the figures is left to a subsequently phase," advises Moran Furman, editor of Trends in Neurosciences, "I think information technology tin be helpful to commencement thinking about the figures from the outset." Anh agrees: "Information technology'southward helpful to devise figures conceptually early because schematics can be worth a g words and assist you focus your text." Moran also advises against what we around the Cell Press office have taken to calling "Frankenfigures": "figures that tend to work well in Review or Opinion articles are ones that summarize findings or highlight new ideas, rather than just reproduce primary source information."

Showtime with the introductory section

Just equally with research articles, there is no one correct place to begin writing, but the introduction came up oft as a reasonable place to starting time. Consider the right level of specificity, again keeping your audition in mind: if you lot're writing a review of algal biofuels for a biomolecular engineering audience, you probably don't need to motivate the unabridged concept of biofuels.

There are three critical elements of introductory sections that I encourage every Trends in Biotechnology author to include: a bones scientific overview (for a biotechnology journal, this should embrace both the biological system being exploited equally a applied science and the practical problem that technology is intended to solve), the unique selling point of the review, and a preview of the specific content of the review.

Most authors do well with the scientific overview and the preview of the commodity. Only the unique selling indicate often takes a little more than encouragement. As an author, this should be the virtually exciting part: this is your gamble to tell the world why information technology should be interested in what you have to say. If you can express this in a succinct and compelling fashion, while also explaining how your review advances the conversation beyond any other reviews that may have been published on the topic, then you are putting yourself in a position to succeed every bit you compose the rest of the manuscript.

Appoint co-authors, editors, and colleagues early and ofttimes

Finally, as nosotros have explained before, never submit the kickoff draft of your manuscript. Instead, read information technology again and expect to make significant revisions even before you lot submit: make sure that all of the sections feel like they're part of the same coherent work, terms are used consistently, and the level of scientific detail doesn't vary significantly from 1 paragraph to the next.

Y'all're not writing a review in a vacuum. Often, you'll be writing in collaboration with co-authors, who should ideally be involved with every stage of writing, but especially when they're contributing specific technical expertise. If you're writing for Trends, yous're working with an editor whose chore it is to help yous write the best review possible. And you almost certainly have colleagues who are educated and interested in science yet not subject-affair experts in the precise topic of the review. Use these resource to make sure that the article you lot've started writing captures the almost contempo and exciting literature, conforms to the journal'southward specifications, and is comprehensible to a wide audience.

Equally Cell Leading Border Editor (and quondam editor of Trends in Biochemical Sciences) Nicole Neuman rightly points out, writing a review is much unlike from editing i, and then nosotros would love to hear additional suggestions from our authors: how do you lot commence on the review-writing process?

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Matt is the editor of Trends in Biotechnology, Cell Printing's home for reviews in the applied biological sciences. His background is not so secretly in engineering rather than biology, simply he hopes you won't concord that confronting him. He can often exist found crafting and enjoying fine beverages (which is definitely biotechnology) and blogging nearly strategy game pattern (which is surprisingly similar to managing a reviews journal).

Filed to Reviews, Cell Stem Cell, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Trends in Molecular Medicine, Trends in Neurosciences, Cell, Trends in Biotechnology, Trends in Cell Biology, Trends in Parasitology, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, Get published, Cell Mentor

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