Structure of a review article

What is a review article?

A review article summarizes and organizes the recent studies on a specific subject to help others to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the subject of interest.

How to write a review article?

In a review article, the underlying knowledge related to the subject under examination is considered a hypothesis rather than being investigated. This type of study involves the classification of the research examining a similar topic, future prospects of the given research topic, and finally evaluation and comparison of the available strategies and methods. 

The purpose of a review article is to provide a well-organized and comprehensive view of the investigations performed on a given research topic.

It is not necessary to mention all details of the reviewed articles. But, it should be noted that the details of the studies under review should be addressed equally. Make sure to cover all the related work. The logical structure of the article should be taken into account.

Here are some tips for writing a review article:

  • Summarize at least 5-8 articles on each research topic.
  • State your evaluative ideas regarding the methods used by each article and their comparison with other methods.
  • Make a critical review of the previously done work from several points.
  • State your predictions and suggestions about future studies.
  • Do not forget that everything you write in a review article should belong to yourself. Any content borrowed from other articles should be referenced in your article.

Title

Almost similar to the original article

Authors’ affiliations

Similar to the original article

Abstract and keywords

The abstract consists of two main parts: a) the background and purpose of the study (in a sentence) and b) an explanation of the various parts of the article. The last sentence presents the conclusion and future orientation of the research.

 

Introduction:

Describe the background and purpose of the study (in one paragraph). The aim is placed at the beginning or end of the paragraph. After explaining the background, the research problems are often presented in a series of questions that are responded to in the result section.

Results:

This section constitutes the central part of the body of the paper that involves a comprehensive and prospective summary of the research findings by compiling the hypotheses, creating questions, combining the results of previous studies, and making a critical evaluation.

Conclusion:

This section summarizes the results of the previous studies (preferably in a table). Then, a conclusion is made in line with the research objective. In the end, the future orientation of the research is presented.

References

This section is similar to that of the original articles. In these articles, references are of two kinds: a) scientific reports and articles the results of which have been reviewed only as second-hand data, and b) references used in the article’s writing.

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