Questions to Ask When Reviewing a Journal Article

Turns out people have a lot of questions about writing reviews.

On June 27, Researcher Academy hosted a webinar entitled "An editor'south guide to writing a review commodity," featuring presentations from Cell Press editors Lindsey Drayton (Trends in Cognitive Sciences) and Matt Pavlovich (Trends in Biotechnology). In the webinar, Lindsey and Matt addressed some of the most pressing questions nearly pitching, planning, and writing a review article, just there was a lot that went unanswered in the 60-minute session.

Lindsey and Matt have gone through all 173 (!) queries submitted during the webinar, and they've pulled out 11 key questions to respond.

Question 1: Practice you need to draw how the data in a review were collected, validated, and analyzed?

Matt Pavlovich: This depends on the point of the review. If the experimental procedures in your field are well-established and non-controversial, and your review is more about synthesizing all of the different results in one place, then a lengthy description of data collection is probably non necessary.

Some journals, including the Trends journals, permit optional text boxes that y'all could employ to depict information handling in more detail. On the other manus, if the review is intensely methods-focused, and you're trying to illustrate, for example, that how you operate an instrument leads to vastly different results for the same experimental system, and then you probably need more than detail about data collection and analysis.

Question 2: Can you outset writing a review article when there are a few already published on the same topic? When is the best time for a new review?

MP: You lot can write a review even if in that location are already a few on the same topic as long every bit you lot're saying something new and non simply covering the same ground. Maybe you're reviewing the same body of literature in a different context or for a different audience, or perhaps the aforementioned results accept led you to a dissimilar hypothesis or conclusion. Regardless, I ever recommend acknowledging that other reviews exist (usually in the introductory section of the review) and explaining in specific terms how yours is different and moves the conversation forward.

To the same effect, the best time to write a review is when there's something new to say. A "review of first impression" that is the first to compare all of the findings in an emerging field is e'er exciting, but you tin can also write a review to capture new applications or approaches to thinking about the topic.

Question 3: Is the feel of the authors critical for a review to be accepted? Are new groups working on a certain topic encouraged to submit reviews?

MP: As we mentioned in the webinar, we do look that the authors of a review will be experts in the topic of the commodity. What it means to be an expert varies from journal to journal and editor to editor, but at the very to the lowest degree, it commonly ways that the senior writer(s) have published multiple times in the past few years on the subject of the review or a related topic.

The order of authorship matters less: we sympathize that review writing is often a collaborative exercise among many members of a inquiry group, and it shouldn't bear upon your ability to publish the review if the almost senior author is listed beginning, concluding, or somewhere in the centre.

Question iv: If at the review phase, the reviewers recommend to add together more than content in a specific topic and to include new methods, references, or keywords, what practice yous recommend?

MP: Reviewers play an of import role in helping editors assess a manuscript because they accept technical expertise in the specific topic of the review that we usually lack. The suggestion to add more updated references is one of the well-nigh mutual comments we receive—and fortunately for authors, i of the near straightforward to address. Ofttimes a reviewer has some specific publications in mind, which are typically very recent and may fifty-fifty have been published later on the review was submitted. In other cases, the reviewer has a more general sense that the references are out of date and recommends updating them, which is accomplished easily enough past a query in your favorite scientific search engine.

More extensive reviewer suggestions, such as expanding the review to a new topic, may or may not agree with your intended scope for the article. Ideally, the editor volition have given you some guidance for which of those changes are required for publication versus which are items to incorporate if you call back it'south a proficient thought. If you feel this is ambiguous from the editor's decision letter, every bit always, ask the editor directly.

Question 5: Is it adequate to include research data in a review to elaborate a point? Are at that place any limits to how far this can go?

MP: Whether it'due south appropriate to include new research data in a review is entirely up to the journal. The Trends journals have a strict policy against including new data, even in the class of meta-analysis or statistical hypothesis testing. This policy arises from fairness to our reviewers—we ask them to evaluate the accuracy, novelty, and accessibility of the article, amid other things, simply nosotros don't expect them to assess the validity of a methodology—as well every bit an involvement in consistency across the portfolio. But some journals are willing to include previously unpublished information as a proof of principle for a hypothesis stated in a review.

Question 6: The last review article on a related topic was published 5 years ago. Is this motivation for writing a new review article?

MP: It might exist, especially if at that place take been many research articles published since then or if at that place has been an of import modify in the way things are done in the field. On the other hand, a lack of a recent review on an established topic might indicate declining interest in the field, a lack of recent inquiry, or just an acknowledgment that the field is mature and there aren't many new things to say about it.

Question vii: What are your thoughts on self-citations in a review article?

MP: Self-citations are entirely advisable under the right circumstances—after all, you've been invited to write a review in part because y'all have already published on the topic you lot're reviewing. The discussion should be balanced such that the article does non come across as an advertisement for your own work but cites your work in a neutral mode along with other important contributions from different researchers. If your group is the only one working on a certain topic, that'due south probably a good sign that the topic isn't ready for a review just yet. At Trends, we discourage explicit reference to your ain work and propose against phrases like "in our lab" or "our own results showed," but not all journals are as strict on this point.

Question eight: Can y'all clarify the differences in requirements for a systematic review, concise review, and meta-analysis? What is the divergence between a review commodity and brusk advice? When is a review considered a mini-review? Does a book affiliate differ substantially from a review in a periodical? How is a review different from a commentary?

MP: We got a lot of questions nigh various formats for reviews and review-like publications. Unfortunately, it'south impossible to give an overarching answer to this question, considering each journal has unlike formats and dissimilar expectations for those formats. Just I'll endeavor to give my perspective on some of these.

My agreement of a systematic review is that information technology seeks to answer a particular focused question and has strict, pre-defined criteria nearly what publications information technology volition include. These tend to be almost common in medical enquiry also as in social sciences. Meta-assay takes the idea further past applying a rigorous statistical methodology to the studies generated past a systematic review. A book chapter tends to be more exhaustive and less opinionated than a review article and should above all else exist counterbalanced and authoritative, while a commentary (sometimes called a perspective) is unremarkably an opinion-driven narrative nearly a field by an individual good that may not cite many sources at all. Finally, what makes a review curtailed, brusk, or mini depends entirely on the journal'due south standards, then brand sure your manuscript is a good fit for your intended journal earlier you submit.

Question nine: I work with PhD students who are often required to write reviews as part of their graduate program. What exercise you lot think of this practice? Do you lot have any advice for PhD students in this position?

Lindsey Drayton: Whether you should write a review (or whether graduate programs should require their students to write reviews) depends on what you want to go out of writing information technology. There are lots of reasons why writing a review is a valuable feel independent of whether that review is ultimately published—yous'll undoubtedly have learned a lot, and you'll probably have improved your writing skills.

Having said that, I don't remember that the chief goal of writing a review as a PhD student (especially if you're the sole author) should be to get it published. If your review ends up getting published, then great, but at this early on phase in your career, the value often comes from the procedure of writing the review rather than publishing it. And call up, even if the review doesn't get published immediately, it might end up being the get-go draft of a review you lot write later in your career when your ideas are more developed.

Question x: How tin we ensure that there's a flow in what you lot're writing and then that the writing doesn't announced fragmented?

LD: This can be tricky! One way to ensure that your article flows well is to make sure that each department builds logically on the proceeding section. If yous've written your manuscript and at that place's no reason why Section B comes after Department A, that's a problem.

Before y'all start writing, you should have some time to outline the contents of the review. When making this outline, one of the key things to retrieve about is the relationship betwixt the unlike sections of the manuscript. Keep in mind that there generally isn't simply one right way to structure a review, just as there isn't one right way to tell a story. The important thing is that there is a narrative for readers to follow—it's upwardly to you to decide what this narrative is. You should also inquire other people to read your manuscript and give y'all feedback on whether they think each department segues naturally into the adjacent or whether they found any of the transitions jarring.

Question 11: What'southward some general advice on what kind of information is better to display in tables and figures? Do they unremarkably improve readability?

LD: A lot of authors don't give enough thought to figures and tables—what we at Trends telephone call "additional elements." But putting some extra effort into these elements can really aid make your review stand out. When it comes to explaining a cardinal concept, a picture can truly be worth a thousand words, and so I strongly encourage authors to think about translating the key accept dwelling house messages of the review into an image. Unlike editors will have different preferences, merely I don't find it particularly helpful to use figures to reprint specific empirical results. If yous have a large number of studies that y'all want to compare and contrast along different dimensions, a table is a great style to do this. Y'all can save a lot of space by presenting the results of unlike studies in a tabular array rather than doing and then in the principal text of the review.

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Jerry'due south spent the last decade searching for the perfect cheese danish. That search—among other things—brought him to Minneapolis, where he works from a sunny bedroom as the Product Manager of Cell Mentor. Alongside his winsome, indomitable rat terrier Camper, Jerry keeps Cell Mentor trending and on job.

Filed to Reviews, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Trends in Biotechnology, Cell Mentor

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Source: http://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/your-questions-about-writing-review-articles-answered

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