Are you planning to write a literature review? A recent article in the journal Nature may be able to help. The author of the article titled How to write a superb literature review asked editors and researchers to share their tips:
- Be focused and avoid jargon. Wenting Zhao, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, says that a good literature review should offer a focused discussion on a particular topic. He notes that a well written review should avoid jargon and explain basic concepts to readers who are new to the field.
- Have a process and develop your style. Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago, Bozhi Tian, states that once the purpose of the review has been decided, he tries to create a team of students and researchers with different areas of expertise so that a variety of perspectives are considered. The team then works on a review outline, conducts the literature search, and writes the review, being careful to include fresh ideas and not repeat the content of other published reviews.
- Timeliness and figures make a huge difference. Ankita Anirban, Editor of Nature Reviews Physics, who evaluates reviews for publication, says that the best reviews are timely and explain why readers should pay attention to the topic. She points out that the most interesting reviews provide a discussion about disagreements in the field and feature figures to illustrate the science and the data.
- Stay updated and be open to suggestions. Yoojin Choi, Research Assistant Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, stresses the importance of staying abreast of the literature in order to provide the most up-to-date and unique review (setting up search alerts can help with this). Being open to suggestions from colleagues and peer-reviewers ensures a well written article.
- Make good use of technology. Paula Martin-Gonzalez, PhD student at the University of Cambridge in the UK, noted the difficulty she had in finding all of the seminal articles related to her research topic. She created code for a small application that helped make her literature search more efficient and hopes to build a more user-friendly tool to help other researchers.
One of the most valuable parts of this article is the comparison of reference manager software and collaborative writing tools - information including cost, level of user support, whether the product can be used with Google Docs is nicely displayed in table format.
Reference: ay, A. (2020, December 9). How to write a superb literature review. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x
