What Are the Potential Uses of the Literature Review in Research?

• Journal List
• PLoS Comput Biol
• five.9(seven); 2013 Jul
• PMC3715443

PLoS Comput Biol. 2013 Jul; ix(7): e1003149.

X Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco Pautasso

¹Heart for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, French republic

²Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Philip E. Bourne, Editor

Literature reviews are in great demand in virtually scientific fields. Their demand stems from the always-increasing output of scientific publications [one]. For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 3, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [ii]. Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new newspaper relevant to their interests [iii]. Thus, information technology is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [four]. For such summaries to exist useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional style [five].

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research upshot are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offer courses in reviewing the literature, given that near research students showtime their projection by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6]. However, information technology is likely that most scientists accept not idea in detail most how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant textile to synthesising information from diverse sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [vii]. In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights as well come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to cull which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that yous could spend a lifetime of attention conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the i mitt, if you take several years to choose, several other people may take had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, merely a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a vivid literature review [8]. The topic must at least exist:

1. interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that phone call for a critical summary),

2. an of import aspect of the field (and then that many readers volition be interested in the review and there will be plenty material to write it), and

3. a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key inquiry questions to be answered [9], just also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In add-on to choosing your topic, yous should likewise select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., spider web services in computational biology) volition automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of involvement to neighbouring fields (due east.m., calculator science, biology, etc.).

Dominion 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. V pieces of advice here:

1. keep track of the search items you utilise (so that your search can be replicated [10]),

2. proceed a list of papers whose pdfs you lot cannot access immediately (so equally to call back them later with culling strategies),

3. use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),

4. define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to assistance ascertain its telescopic), and

5. do not just wait for inquiry papers in the expanse you wish to review, but too seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone volition already accept published a literature review (Effigy ane), if not exactly on the issue yous are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If in that location are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your event, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

A conceptual diagram of the need for different types of literature reviews depending on the amount of published research papers and literature reviews.

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews just few research papers) is not simply a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the report of the impacts of climatic change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33].

1. discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of by reviews,

2. trying to notice a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and

3. incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules use:

1. be thorough,

2. use different keywords and database sources (eastward.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and

3. expect at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers beginning, and only afterwards commencement writing the review, you lot will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each unmarried paper. My communication is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of data, insights nearly how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, past the time you have read the literature yous selected, you lot will already take a rough draft of the review.

Of class, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent statement [11], only you will have avoided the danger posed past staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to utilize quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable and then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, and then equally to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour volition save you fourth dimension.

Dominion 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

Subsequently having taken notes while reading the literature, you will accept a crude idea of the corporeality of textile available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a pocket-sized review: it may well attract more attention from decorated readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant cloth due to space limitations. A total review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific evolution, only may then be left in the pile of the very important papers "to exist read" by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

In that location is probably a continuum betwixt mini- and full reviews. The same indicate applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and estimation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12]. A similar stardom exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews endeavour to exam a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13], [14]. When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative style, they get meta-analyses. The choice between unlike review types will have to be fabricated on a case-by-case ground, depending not simply on the nature of the material plant and the preferences of the target journal(south), simply also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15].

Rule five: Keep the Review Focused, but Brand It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, information technology is good advice to keep it focused 16,17. Including cloth simply for the sake of it tin easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at in one case. The need to keep a review focused tin be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to span the gap betwixt fields [eighteen]. If you lot are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include textile from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may exist necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would simply deal in particular with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important characteristic of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to brand the review relevant to a wide audience. This square may exist circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19]. Later on having read a review of the literature, a reader should take a rough idea of:

1. the major achievements in the reviewed field,

2. the chief areas of contend, and

3. the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to accomplish a successful review on all these fronts. A solution tin exist to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are splendid at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come up from. If your periodical social club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the option of passive vs. agile vox and nowadays vs. past tense.

Rule seven: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a skillful review has a number of telling features: information technology is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It likewise needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of enquiry papers into introduction, methods, results, and word does not work or is rarely used. Still, a general introduction of the context and, toward the stop, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home letters make sense also in the instance of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including data nigh how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20].

How can y'all organize the flow of the main torso of the review so that the reader volition be drawn into and guided through information technology? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.m., with listen-mapping techniques. Such diagrams tin help recognize a logical style to order and link the various sections of a review [21]. This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text also [22].

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as enquiry papers, and rightly and so [23]. Equally a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review typhoon. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed past the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however appropriate to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing communication on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should exist sought from a diverseness of colleagues, so as to obtain a diverseness of views on the typhoon. This may lead in some cases to alien views on the claim of the paper, and on how to amend information technology, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A variety of feedback perspectives on a literature review tin can assist identify where the consensus view stands in the mural of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24].

Rule ix: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own piece of work [25]? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving besides much importance to their ain findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be disproportionately dismissive of their own achievements, then that they volition tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an practice in competitive cocky-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to exist objective in reviewing one's ain relevant findings. In reviews written past multiple authors, this may be accomplished by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, simply Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive dispatch in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not but of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so every bit non to go out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should non identify as a major research gap an issue that has only been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies ("sleeping beauties" [26])). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an center on electronic lists of papers in printing, given that it tin can have months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain signal in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision phase may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to estimate their significance and bear on on further enquiry and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will announced from all quarters later on the review has been published, so that in that location may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of scientific discipline [27]–[32]. I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, Yard. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, Thou. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Heart for Synthesis and Assay of Biodiversity information (CESAB), as office of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

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