What is a review article?
Reviews summarize and synthesize the current state of the research on a particular topic. Ideally, the writer analyzes all recent literature to provide a coherent view of the state of the art. Since they do not report new original research, they are part of the Secondary Literature. Review articles will tell you about:
- recent major advances and discoveries
- significant gaps in the research
- current debates
- who's working in a field
- ideas of where research might go next
Review articles are usually longer than research articles (some might be 100 pages or more!) and have extensive bibliographies. Thus they are excellent places to discover important previous articles on a topic. Unlike research articles, reviews are better places to get background on a topic, although some prior familiarity with it is expected.
Where are reviews published? Reviews can be found in many different kinds of publications.
- Many research journals also publish regular or occasional reviews.
- Some journals are dedicated to reviews, e.g. Chemical Reviews.
- Most scientific books are essentially long reviews or collections of review chapters.
- Encyclopedia articles are useful background reviews.
