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How to Write an Article Review

Last Updated: September 8, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 3,084,548 times.

An article review is both a summary and an evaluation of another writer's article. Teachers often assign article reviews to introduce students to the work of experts in the field. Experts also are often asked to review the work of other professionals. Understanding the main points and arguments of the article is essential for an accurate summation. Logical evaluation of the article's main theme, supporting arguments, and implications for further research is an important element of a review . Here are a few guidelines for writing an article review.

Education specialist Alexander Peterman recommends: "In the case of a review, your objective should be to reflect on the effectiveness of what has already been written, rather than writing to inform your audience about a subject."

Things You Should Know

• Read the article very closely, and then take time to reflect on your evaluation. Consider whether the article effectively achieves what it set out to.
• Write out a full article review by completing your intro, summary, evaluation, and conclusion. Don't forget to add a title, too!
• Proofread your review for mistakes (like grammar and usage), while also cutting down on needless information. [1] X Research source

Preparing to Write Your Review

• Article reviews present more than just an opinion. You will engage with the text to create a response to the scholarly writer's ideas. You will respond to and use ideas, theories, and research from your studies. Your critique of the article will be based on proof and your own thoughtful reasoning.
• An article review only responds to the author's research. It typically does not provide any new research. However, if you are correcting misleading or otherwise incorrect points, some new data may be presented.
• An article review both summarizes and evaluates the article.

• Summarize the article. Focus on the important points, claims, and information.
• Discuss the positive aspects of the article. Think about what the author does well, good points she makes, and insightful observations.
• Identify contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the text. Determine if there is enough data or research included to support the author's claims. Find any unanswered questions left in the article.

• Make note of words or issues you don't understand and questions you have.
• Look up terms or concepts you are unfamiliar with, so you can fully understand the article. Read about concepts in-depth to make sure you understand their full context.

• Pay careful attention to the meaning of the article. Make sure you fully understand the article. The only way to write a good article review is to understand the article.

• With either method, make an outline of the main points made in the article and the supporting research or arguments. It is strictly a restatement of the main points of the article and does not include your opinions.
• After putting the article in your own words, decide which parts of the article you want to discuss in your review. You can focus on the theoretical approach, the content, the presentation or interpretation of evidence, or the style. You will always discuss the main issues of the article, but you can sometimes also focus on certain aspects. This comes in handy if you want to focus the review towards the content of a course.
• Review the summary outline to eliminate unnecessary items. Erase or cross out the less important arguments or supplemental information. Your revised summary can serve as the basis for the summary you provide at the beginning of your review.

• What does the article set out to do?
• What is the theoretical framework or assumptions?
• Are the central concepts clearly defined?
• How adequate is the evidence?
• How does the article fit into the literature and field?
• Does it advance the knowledge of the subject?
• How clear is the author's writing? Don't: include superficial opinions or your personal reaction. Do: pay attention to your biases, so you can overcome them.

Writing the Article Review

• For example, in MLA , a citation may look like: Duvall, John N. "The (Super)Marketplace of Images: Television as Unmediated Mediation in DeLillo's White Noise ." Arizona Quarterly 50.3 (1994): 127-53. Print. [10] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

• For example: The article, "Condom use will increase the spread of AIDS," was written by Anthony Zimmerman, a Catholic priest.

• Your introduction should only be 10-25% of your review.
• End the introduction with your thesis. Your thesis should address the above issues. For example: Although the author has some good points, his article is biased and contains some misinterpretation of data from others’ analysis of the effectiveness of the condom.

• Use direct quotes from the author sparingly.
• Review the summary you have written. Read over your summary many times to ensure that your words are an accurate description of the author's article.

• Support your critique with evidence from the article or other texts.
• The summary portion is very important for your critique. You must make the author's argument clear in the summary section for your evaluation to make sense.
• Remember, this is not where you say if you liked the article or not. You are assessing the significance and relevance of the article.
• Use a topic sentence and supportive arguments for each opinion. For example, you might address a particular strength in the first sentence of the opinion section, followed by several sentences elaborating on the significance of the point.

• This should only be about 10% of your overall essay.
• For example: This critical review has evaluated the article "Condom use will increase the spread of AIDS" by Anthony Zimmerman. The arguments in the article show the presence of bias, prejudice, argumentative writing without supporting details, and misinformation. These points weaken the author’s arguments and reduce his credibility.

• Make sure you have identified and discussed the 3-4 key issues in the article.

Sample Article Reviews

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/grammarpunct/proofreading/
• ↑ https://libguides.cmich.edu/writinghelp/articlereview
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4548566/
• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 24 July 2020.
• ↑ https://guides.library.queensu.ca/introduction-research/writing/critical
• ↑ https://www.iup.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/organization-and-structure/creating-an-outline.html
• ↑ https://writing.umn.edu/sws/assets/pdf/quicktips/titles.pdf
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_periodicals.html
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4548565/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/593/2014/06/How_to_Summarize_a_Research_Article1.pdf
• ↑ https://www.uis.edu/learning-hub/writing-resources/handouts/learning-hub/how-to-review-a-journal-article
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/

About This Article

If you have to write an article review, read through the original article closely, taking notes and highlighting important sections as you read. Next, rewrite the article in your own words, either in a long paragraph or as an outline. Open your article review by citing the article, then write an introduction which states the article’s thesis. Next, summarize the article, followed by your opinion about whether the article was clear, thorough, and useful. Finish with a paragraph that summarizes the main points of the article and your opinions. To learn more about what to include in your personal critique of the article, keep reading the article! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Review a Journal Article

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For many kinds of assignments, like a  literature review , you may be asked to offer a critique or review of a journal article. This is an opportunity for you as a scholar to offer your  qualified opinion  and  evaluation  of how another scholar has composed their article, argument, and research. That means you will be expected to go beyond a simple  summary  of the article and evaluate it on a deeper level. As a college student, this might sound intimidating. However, as you engage with the research process, you are becoming immersed in a particular topic, and your insights about the way that topic is presented are valuable and can contribute to the overall conversation surrounding your topic.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!

Some disciplines, like Criminal Justice, may only want you to summarize the article without including your opinion or evaluation. If your assignment is to summarize the article only, please see our literature review handout.

Before getting started on the critique, it is important to review the article thoroughly and critically. To do this, we recommend take notes,  annotating , and reading the article several times before critiquing. As you read, be sure to note important items like the thesis, purpose, research questions, hypotheses, methods, evidence, key findings, major conclusions, tone, and publication information. Depending on your writing context, some of these items may not be applicable.

Questions to Consider

To evaluate a source, consider some of the following questions. They are broken down into different categories, but answering these questions will help you consider what areas to examine. With each category, we recommend identifying the strengths and weaknesses in each since that is a critical part of evaluation.

Evaluating Purpose and Argument

• How well is the purpose made clear in the introduction through background/context and thesis?
• How well does the abstract represent and summarize the article’s major points and argument?
• How well does the objective of the experiment or of the observation fill a need for the field?
• How well is the argument/purpose articulated and discussed throughout the body of the text?
• How well does the discussion maintain cohesion?

Evaluating the Presentation/Organization of Information

• How appropriate and clear is the title of the article?
• Where could the author have benefited from expanding, condensing, or omitting ideas?
• How clear are the author’s statements? Challenge ambiguous statements.
• What underlying assumptions does the author have, and how does this affect the credibility or clarity of their article?
• How objective is the author in his or her discussion of the topic?
• How well does the organization fit the article’s purpose and articulate key goals?

Evaluating Methods

• How appropriate are the study design and methods for the purposes of the study?
• How detailed are the methods being described? Is the author leaving out important steps or considerations?
• Have the procedures been presented in enough detail to enable the reader to duplicate them?

Evaluating Data

• Scan and spot-check calculations. Are the statistical methods appropriate?
• Do you find any content repeated or duplicated?
• How many errors of fact and interpretation does the author include? (You can check on this by looking up the references the author cites).
• What pertinent literature has the author cited, and have they used this literature appropriately?

Following, we have an example of a summary and an evaluation of a research article. Note that in most literature review contexts, the summary and evaluation would be much shorter. This extended example shows the different ways a student can critique and write about an article.

Chik, A. (2012). Digital gameplay for autonomous foreign language learning: Gamers’ and language teachers’ perspectives. In H. Reinders (ed.),  Digital games in language learning and teaching  (pp. 95-114). Eastbourne, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Be sure to include the full citation either in a reference page or near your evaluation if writing an  annotated bibliography .

In Chik’s article “Digital Gameplay for Autonomous Foreign Language Learning: Gamers’ and Teachers’ Perspectives”, she explores the ways in which “digital gamers manage gaming and gaming-related activities to assume autonomy in their foreign language learning,” (96) which is presented in contrast to how teachers view the “pedagogical potential” of gaming. The research was described as an “umbrella project” consisting of two parts. The first part examined 34 language teachers’ perspectives who had limited experience with gaming (only five stated they played games regularly) (99). Their data was recorded through a survey, class discussion, and a seven-day gaming trial done by six teachers who recorded their reflections through personal blog posts. The second part explored undergraduate gaming habits of ten Hong Kong students who were regular gamers. Their habits were recorded through language learning histories, videotaped gaming sessions, blog entries of gaming practices, group discussion sessions, stimulated recall sessions on gaming videos, interviews with other gamers, and posts from online discussion forums. The research shows that while students recognize the educational potential of games and have seen benefits of it in their lives, the instructors overall do not see the positive impacts of gaming on foreign language learning.

The summary includes the article’s purpose, methods, results, discussion, and citations when necessary.

This article did a good job representing the undergraduate gamers’ voices through extended quotes and stories. Particularly for the data collection of the undergraduate gamers, there were many opportunities for an in-depth examination of their gaming practices and histories. However, the representation of the teachers in this study was very uneven when compared to the students. Not only were teachers labeled as numbers while the students picked out their own pseudonyms, but also when viewing the data collection, the undergraduate students were more closely examined in comparison to the teachers in the study. While the students have fifteen extended quotes describing their experiences in their research section, the teachers only have two of these instances in their section, which shows just how imbalanced the study is when presenting instructor voices.

Some research methods, like the recorded gaming sessions, were only used with students whereas teachers were only asked to blog about their gaming experiences. This creates a richer narrative for the students while also failing to give instructors the chance to have more nuanced perspectives. This lack of nuance also stems from the emphasis of the non-gamer teachers over the gamer teachers. The non-gamer teachers’ perspectives provide a stark contrast to the undergraduate gamer experiences and fits neatly with the narrative of teachers not valuing gaming as an educational tool. However, the study mentioned five teachers that were regular gamers whose perspectives are left to a short section at the end of the presentation of the teachers’ results. This was an opportunity to give the teacher group a more complex story, and the opportunity was entirely missed.

Additionally, the context of this study was not entirely clear. The instructors were recruited through a master’s level course, but the content of the course and the institution’s background is not discussed. Understanding this context helps us understand the course’s purpose(s) and how those purposes may have influenced the ways in which these teachers interpreted and saw games. It was also unclear how Chik was connected to this masters’ class and to the students. Why these particular teachers and students were recruited was not explicitly defined and also has the potential to skew results in a particular direction.

Overall, I was inclined to agree with the idea that students can benefit from language acquisition through gaming while instructors may not see the instructional value, but I believe the way the research was conducted and portrayed in this article made it very difficult to support Chik’s specific findings.

Some professors like you to begin an evaluation with something positive but isn’t always necessary.

The evaluation is clearly organized and uses transitional phrases when moving to a new topic.

This evaluation includes a summative statement that gives the overall impression of the article at the end, but this can also be placed at the beginning of the evaluation.

This evaluation mainly discusses the representation of data and methods. However, other areas, like organization, are open to critique.

How to Write an Effective Journal Article Review

• First Online: 01 January 2012

Cite this chapter

• Dennis Drotar PhD 2 ,
• Yelena P. Wu PhD 3 &
• Jennifer M. Rohan MA 4  

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The experience of reviewing manuscripts for scientific journals is an important one in professional development. Reviewing articles gives trainees familiarity with the peer review process in ways that facilitate their writing. For example, reviewing manuscripts can help students and early career psychologists understand what reviewers and editors look for in a peer-reviewed article and ways to critique and enhance a manuscript based on peer review. Experiences in review can facilitate early career faculty with early entry into and experience being a reviewer for a professional journal. The experience of journal reviews also gives students a broader connection to the field of science in areas of their primary professional interest. At the same time reviewing articles for scientific journals poses a number of difficult challenges (see Hyman, 1995; Drotar, 2000a, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2009d, 2010, 2011; Lovejoy, Revenson, & France, 2011). The purpose of this chapter is to provide an introduction to the review process and give step by step guidance in conducting reviews for scientific journals. Interested readers might wish to read Lovejoy et al.’s (2011) primer for manuscript review, which contains annotated examples of reviews and an editor’s decision letter.

• Journal Review Article
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Dennis Drotar PhD

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Yelena P. Wu PhD

Division of Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 45229-3039, USA

Jennifer M. Rohan MA

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Mitchell J. Prinstein

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Drotar, D., Wu, Y.P., Rohan, J.M. (2013). How to Write an Effective Journal Article Review. In: Prinstein, M. (eds) The Portable Mentor. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3994-3_11

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A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Review Article

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Manisha Bahl, A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Review Article, Journal of Breast Imaging , Volume 5, Issue 4, July/August 2023, Pages 480–485, https://doi.org/10.1093/jbi/wbad028

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Scientific review articles are comprehensive, focused reviews of the scientific literature written by subject matter experts. The task of writing a scientific review article can seem overwhelming; however, it can be managed by using an organized approach and devoting sufficient time to the process. The process involves selecting a topic about which the authors are knowledgeable and enthusiastic, conducting a literature search and critical analysis of the literature, and writing the article, which is composed of an abstract, introduction, body, and conclusion, with accompanying tables and figures. This article, which focuses on the narrative or traditional literature review, is intended to serve as a guide with practical steps for new writers. Tips for success are also discussed, including selecting a focused topic, maintaining objectivity and balance while writing, avoiding tedious data presentation in a laundry list format, moving from descriptions of the literature to critical analysis, avoiding simplistic conclusions, and budgeting time for the overall process.

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How to write a journal article review: Do the writing

• What's in this Guide
• What is a journal article?
• Create a template
• Choose your article to review
• Read your article carefully

Do the writing

• Remember to edit
• Additional resources

Start to write. Follow the instructions of your assessment, then structure your writing accordingly.

The four key parts of a journal article review are:

3. A critique, or a discussion about the key points of the journal article.

A critique is a discussion about the key points of the journal article. It should be a balanced discussion about the  strengths and weaknesses of the key points and structure of the article.

You will also need to discuss if the author(s) points are valid (supported by other literature) and robust (would you get the same outcome if the way the information was gathered was repeated).

Example of part of a critique

4. A conclusion - a final evaluation of the article

1. Give an overall opinion of the text.

2. Briefly summarise key points and determine if they are valid, useful, accurate etc.

3. Remember, do not include new ideas or opinions in the conclusion.

Pathways and Academic Learning Support

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• Last Updated: Apr 27, 2023 4:28 PM
• URL: https://libguides.newcastle.edu.au/how-to-write-a-journal-article-review

How to Write an Article Review: Tips and Examples

Did you know that article reviews are not just academic exercises but also a valuable skill in today's information age? In a world inundated with content, being able to dissect and evaluate articles critically can help you separate the wheat from the chaff. Whether you're a student aiming to excel in your coursework or a professional looking to stay well-informed, mastering the art of writing article reviews is an invaluable skill.

Short Description

In this article, our research paper writing service experts will start by unraveling the concept of article reviews and discussing the various types. You'll also gain insights into the art of formatting your review effectively. To ensure you're well-prepared, we'll take you through the pre-writing process, offering tips on setting the stage for your review. But it doesn't stop there. You'll find a practical example of an article review to help you grasp the concepts in action. To complete your journey, we'll guide you through the post-writing process, equipping you with essential proofreading techniques to ensure your work shines with clarity and precision!

What Is an Article Review: Grasping the Concept 

A review article is a type of professional paper writing that demands a high level of in-depth analysis and a well-structured presentation of arguments. It is a critical, constructive evaluation of literature in a particular field through summary, classification, analysis, and comparison.

If you write a scientific review, you have to use database searches to portray the research. Your primary goal is to summarize everything and present a clear understanding of the topic you've been working on.

Writing Involves:

• Summarization, classification, analysis, critiques, and comparison.
• The analysis, evaluation, and comparison require the use of theories, ideas, and research relevant to the subject area of the article.
• It is also worth nothing if a review does not introduce new information, but instead presents a response to another writer's work.
• Check out other samples to gain a better understanding of how to review the article.

Types of Review

When it comes to article reviews, there's more than one way to approach the task. Understanding the various types of reviews is like having a versatile toolkit at your disposal. In this section, we'll walk you through the different dimensions of review types, each offering a unique perspective and purpose. Whether you're dissecting a scholarly article, critiquing a piece of literature, or evaluating a product, you'll discover the diverse landscape of article reviews and how to navigate it effectively.

Journal Article Review

Just like other types of reviews, a journal article review assesses the merits and shortcomings of a published work. To illustrate, consider a review of an academic paper on climate change, where the writer meticulously analyzes and interprets the article's significance within the context of environmental science.

Research Article Review

Distinguished by its focus on research methodologies, a research article review scrutinizes the techniques used in a study and evaluates them in light of the subsequent analysis and critique. For instance, when reviewing a research article on the effects of a new drug, the reviewer would delve into the methods employed to gather data and assess their reliability.

Science Article Review

In the realm of scientific literature, a science article review encompasses a wide array of subjects. Scientific publications often provide extensive background information, which can be instrumental in conducting a comprehensive analysis. For example, when reviewing an article about the latest breakthroughs in genetics, the reviewer may draw upon the background knowledge provided to facilitate a more in-depth evaluation of the publication.

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Formatting an Article Review

The format of the article should always adhere to the citation style required by your professor. If you're not sure, seek clarification on the preferred format and ask him to clarify several other pointers to complete the formatting of an article review adequately.

How Many Publications Should You Review?

• In what format should you cite your articles (MLA, APA, ASA, Chicago, etc.)?
• What length should your review be?
• Should you include a summary, critique, or personal opinion in your assignment?
• Do you need to call attention to a theme or central idea within the articles?
• Does your instructor require background information?

When you know the answers to these questions, you may start writing your assignment. Below are examples of MLA and APA formats, as those are the two most common citation styles.

Using the APA Format

Articles appear most commonly in academic journals, newspapers, and websites. If you write an article review in the APA format, you will need to write bibliographical entries for the sources you use:

• Web : Author [last name], A.A [first and middle initial]. (Year, Month, Date of Publication). Title. Retrieved from {link}
• Journal : Author [last name], A.A [first and middle initial]. (Publication Year). Publication Title. Periodical Title, Volume(Issue), pp.-pp.
• Newspaper : Author [last name], A.A [first and middle initial]. (Year, Month, Date of Publication). Publication Title. Magazine Title, pp. xx-xx.

Using MLA Format

• Web : Last, First Middle Initial. “Publication Title.” Website Title. Website Publisher, Date Month Year Published. Web. Date Month Year Accessed.
• Newspaper : Last, First M. “Publication Title.” Newspaper Title [City] Date, Month, Year Published: Page(s). Print.
• Journal : Last, First M. “Publication Title.” Journal Title Series Volume. Issue (Year Published): Page(s). Database Name. Web. Date Month Year Accessed.

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The Pre-Writing Process

Facing this task for the first time can really get confusing and can leave you unsure of where to begin. To create a top-notch article review, start with a few preparatory steps. Here are the two main stages from our dissertation services to get you started:

Step 1: Define the right organization for your review. Knowing the future setup of your paper will help you define how you should read the article. Here are the steps to follow:

• Summarize the article — seek out the main points, ideas, claims, and general information presented in the article.
• Define the positive points — identify the strong aspects, ideas, and insightful observations the author has made.
• Find the gaps —- determine whether or not the author has any contradictions, gaps, or inconsistencies in the article and evaluate whether or not he or she used a sufficient amount of arguments and information to support his or her ideas.
• Identify unanswered questions — finally, identify if there are any questions left unanswered after reading the piece.

Step 2: Move on and review the article. Here is a small and simple guide to help you do it right:

• Start off by looking at and assessing the title of the piece, its abstract, introductory part, headings and subheadings, opening sentences in its paragraphs, and its conclusion.
• First, read only the beginning and the ending of the piece (introduction and conclusion). These are the parts where authors include all of their key arguments and points. Therefore, if you start with reading these parts, it will give you a good sense of the author's main points.
• Finally, read the article fully.

These three steps make up most of the prewriting process. After you are done with them, you can move on to writing your own review—and we are going to guide you through the writing process as well.

Outline and Template

As you progress with reading your article, organize your thoughts into coherent sections in an outline. As you read, jot down important facts, contributions, or contradictions. Identify the shortcomings and strengths of your publication. Begin to map your outline accordingly.

If your professor does not want a summary section or a personal critique section, then you must alleviate those parts from your writing. Much like other assignments, an article review must contain an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Thus, you might consider dividing your outline according to these sections as well as subheadings within the body. If you find yourself troubled with the pre-writing and the brainstorming process for this assignment, seek out a sample outline.

Your custom essay must contain these constituent parts:

• Pre-Title Page - Before diving into your review, start with essential details: article type, publication title, and author names with affiliations (position, department, institution, location, and email). Include corresponding author info if needed.
• Running Head - In APA format, use a concise title (under 40 characters) to ensure consistent formatting.
• Summary Page - Optional but useful. Summarize the article in 800 words, covering background, purpose, results, and methodology, avoiding verbatim text or references.
• Title Page - Include the full title, a 250-word abstract, and 4-6 keywords for discoverability.
• Introduction - Set the stage with an engaging overview of the article.
• Body - Organize your analysis with headings and subheadings.
• Works Cited/References - Properly cite all sources used in your review.
• Optional Suggested Reading Page - If permitted, suggest further readings for in-depth exploration.
• Tables and Figure Legends (if instructed by the professor) - Include visuals when requested by your professor for clarity.

Example of an Article Review

You might wonder why we've dedicated a section of this article to discuss an article review sample. Not everyone may realize it, but examining multiple well-constructed examples of review articles is a crucial step in the writing process. In the following section, our essay writing service experts will explain why.

Looking through relevant article review examples can be beneficial for you in the following ways:

• To get you introduced to the key works of experts in your field.
• To help you identify the key people engaged in a particular field of science.
• To help you define what significant discoveries and advances were made in your field.
• To help you unveil the major gaps within the existing knowledge of your field—which contributes to finding fresh solutions.
• To help you find solid references and arguments for your own review.
• To help you generate some ideas about any further field of research.
• To help you gain a better understanding of the area and become an expert in this specific field.
• To get a clear idea of how to write a good review.

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Steps for Writing an Article Review

Here is a guide with critique paper format on how to write a review paper:

Step 1: Write the Title

First of all, you need to write a title that reflects the main focus of your work. Respectively, the title can be either interrogative, descriptive, or declarative.

Step 2: Cite the Article

Next, create a proper citation for the reviewed article and input it following the title. At this step, the most important thing to keep in mind is the style of citation specified by your instructor in the requirements for the paper. For example, an article citation in the MLA style should look as follows:

Author's last and first name. "The title of the article." Journal's title and issue(publication date): page(s). Print

Abraham John. "The World of Dreams." Virginia Quarterly 60.2(1991): 125-67. Print.

Step 3: Article Identification

After your citation, you need to include the identification of your reviewed article:

• Title of the article
• Title of the journal
• Year of publication

All of this information should be included in the first paragraph of your paper.

The report "Poverty increases school drop-outs" was written by Brian Faith – a Health officer – in 2000.

Step 4: Introduction

Your organization in an assignment like this is of the utmost importance. Before embarking on your writing process, you should outline your assignment or use an article review template to organize your thoughts coherently.

• If you are wondering how to start an article review, begin with an introduction that mentions the article and your thesis for the review.
• Follow up with a summary of the main points of the article.
• Highlight the positive aspects and facts presented in the publication.
• Critique the publication by identifying gaps, contradictions, disparities in the text, and unanswered questions.

Step 5: Summarize the Article

Make a summary of the article by revisiting what the author has written about. Note any relevant facts and findings from the article. Include the author's conclusions in this section.

Step 6: Critique It

Present the strengths and weaknesses you have found in the publication. Highlight the knowledge that the author has contributed to the field. Also, write about any gaps and/or contradictions you have found in the article. Take a standpoint of either supporting or not supporting the author's assertions, but back up your arguments with facts and relevant theories that are pertinent to that area of knowledge. Rubrics and templates can also be used to evaluate and grade the person who wrote the article.

Step 7: Craft a Conclusion

In this section, revisit the critical points of your piece, your findings in the article, and your critique. Also, write about the accuracy, validity, and relevance of the results of the article review. Present a way forward for future research in the field of study. Before submitting your article, keep these pointers in mind:

• As you read the article, highlight the key points. This will help you pinpoint the article's main argument and the evidence that they used to support that argument.
• While you write your review, use evidence from your sources to make a point. This is best done using direct quotations.
• Select quotes and supporting evidence adequately and use direct quotations sparingly. Take time to analyze the article adequately.
• Every time you reference a publication or use a direct quotation, use a parenthetical citation to avoid accidentally plagiarizing your article.
• Re-read your piece a day after you finish writing it. This will help you to spot grammar mistakes and to notice any flaws in your organization.
• Use a spell-checker and get a second opinion on your paper.

The Post-Writing Process: Proofread Your Work

Finally, when all of the parts of your article review are set and ready, you have one last thing to take care of — proofreading. Although students often neglect this step, proofreading is a vital part of the writing process and will help you polish your paper to ensure that there are no mistakes or inconsistencies.

To proofread your paper properly, start by reading it fully and checking the following points:

• Punctuation
• Other mistakes

Afterward, take a moment to check for any unnecessary information in your paper and, if found, consider removing it to streamline your content. Finally, double-check that you've covered at least 3-4 key points in your discussion.

And remember, if you ever need help with proofreading, rewriting your essay, or even want to buy essay , our friendly team is always here to assist you.

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Related Articles

How to write a good scientific review article

Affiliation.

• 1 The FEBS Journal Editorial Office, Cambridge, UK.
• PMID: 35792782
• DOI: 10.1111/febs.16565

Literature reviews are valuable resources for the scientific community. With research accelerating at an unprecedented speed in recent years and more and more original papers being published, review articles have become increasingly important as a means to keep up to date with developments in a particular area of research. A good review article provides readers with an in-depth understanding of a field and highlights key gaps and challenges to address with future research. Writing a review article also helps to expand the writer's knowledge of their specialist area and to develop their analytical and communication skills, amongst other benefits. Thus, the importance of building review-writing into a scientific career cannot be overstated. In this instalment of The FEBS Journal's Words of Advice series, I provide detailed guidance on planning and writing an informative and engaging literature review.

© 2022 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.

Publication types

• Research Process

Writing a good review article

• 3 minute read
• 70.5K views

Table of Contents

As a young researcher, you might wonder how to start writing your first review article, and the extent of the information that it should contain. A review article is a comprehensive summary of the current understanding of a specific research topic and is based on previously published research. Unlike research papers, it does not contain new results, but can propose new inferences based on the combined findings of previous research.

Types of review articles

Review articles are typically of three types: literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.

A literature review is a general survey of the research topic and aims to provide a reliable and unbiased account of the current understanding of the topic.

A systematic review , in contrast, is more specific and attempts to address a highly focused research question. Its presentation is more detailed, with information on the search strategy used, the eligibility criteria for inclusion of studies, the methods utilized to review the collected information, and more.

A meta-analysis is similar to a systematic review in that both are systematically conducted with a properly defined research question. However, unlike the latter, a meta-analysis compares and evaluates a defined number of similar studies. It is quantitative in nature and can help assess contrasting study findings.

Tips for writing a good review article

Here are a few practices that can make the time-consuming process of writing a review article easier:

• Define your question: Take your time to identify the research question and carefully articulate the topic of your review paper. A good review should also add something new to the field in terms of a hypothesis, inference, or conclusion. A carefully defined scientific question will give you more clarity in determining the novelty of your inferences.
• Identify credible sources: Identify relevant as well as credible studies that you can base your review on, with the help of multiple databases or search engines. It is also a good idea to conduct another search once you have finished your article to avoid missing relevant studies published during the course of your writing.
• Take notes: A literature search involves extensive reading, which can make it difficult to recall relevant information subsequently. Therefore, make notes while conducting the literature search and note down the source references. This will ensure that you have sufficient information to start with when you finally get to writing.
• Describe the title, abstract, and introduction: A good starting point to begin structuring your review is by drafting the title, abstract, and introduction. Explicitly writing down what your review aims to address in the field will help shape the rest of your article.
• Be unbiased and critical: Evaluate every piece of evidence in a critical but unbiased manner. This will help you present a proper assessment and a critical discussion in your article.
• Include a good summary: End by stating the take-home message and identify the limitations of existing studies that need to be addressed through future studies.
• Ask for feedback: Ask a colleague to provide feedback on both the content and the language or tone of your article before you submit it.
• Check your journal’s guidelines: Some journals only publish reviews, while some only publish research articles. Further, all journals clearly indicate their aims and scope. Therefore, make sure to check the appropriateness of a journal before submitting your article.

Writing review articles, especially systematic reviews or meta-analyses, can seem like a daunting task. However, Elsevier Author Services can guide you by providing useful tips on how to write an impressive review article that stands out and gets published!

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How to Write a Peer Review

When you write a peer review for a manuscript, what should you include in your comments? What should you leave out? And how should the review be formatted?

This guide provides quick tips for writing and organizing your reviewer report.

Review Outline

Use an outline for your reviewer report so it’s easy for the editors and author to follow. This will also help you keep your comments organized.

Think about structuring your review like an inverted pyramid. Put the most important information at the top, followed by details and examples in the center, and any additional points at the very bottom.

Here’s how your outline might look:

1. Summary of the research and your overall impression

In your own words, summarize what the manuscript claims to report. This shows the editor how you interpreted the manuscript and will highlight any major differences in perspective between you and the other reviewers. Give an overview of the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses. Think about this as your “take-home” message for the editors. End this section with your recommended course of action.

2. Discussion of specific areas for improvement

It’s helpful to divide this section into two parts: one for major issues and one for minor issues. Within each section, you can talk about the biggest issues first or go systematically figure-by-figure or claim-by-claim. Number each item so that your points are easy to follow (this will also make it easier for the authors to respond to each point). Refer to specific lines, pages, sections, or figure and table numbers so the authors (and editors) know exactly what you’re talking about.

Major vs. minor issues

What’s the difference between a major and minor issue? Major issues should consist of the essential points the authors need to address before the manuscript can proceed. Make sure you focus on what is  fundamental for the current study . In other words, it’s not helpful to recommend additional work that would be considered the “next step” in the study. Minor issues are still important but typically will not affect the overall conclusions of the manuscript. Here are some examples of what would might go in the “minor” category:

• Missing references (but depending on what is missing, this could also be a major issue)
• Technical clarifications (e.g., the authors should clarify how a reagent works)
• Data presentation (e.g., the authors should present p-values differently)
• Typos, spelling, grammar, and phrasing issues

3. Any other points

Confidential comments for the editors.

Some journals have a space for reviewers to enter confidential comments about the manuscript. Use this space to mention concerns about the submission that you’d want the editors to consider before sharing your feedback with the authors, such as concerns about ethical guidelines or language quality. Any serious issues should be raised directly and immediately with the journal as well.

This section is also where you will disclose any potentially competing interests, and mention whether you’re willing to look at a revised version of the manuscript.

Do not use this space to critique the manuscript, since comments entered here will not be passed along to the authors.  If you’re not sure what should go in the confidential comments, read the reviewer instructions or check with the journal first before submitting your review. If you are reviewing for a journal that does not offer a space for confidential comments, consider writing to the editorial office directly with your concerns.

Get this outline in a template

Giving Feedback

Giving feedback is hard. Giving effective feedback can be even more challenging. Remember that your ultimate goal is to discuss what the authors would need to do in order to qualify for publication. The point is not to nitpick every piece of the manuscript. Your focus should be on providing constructive and critical feedback that the authors can use to improve their study.

If you’ve ever had your own work reviewed, you already know that it’s not always easy to receive feedback. Follow the golden rule: Write the type of review you’d want to receive if you were the author. Even if you decide not to identify yourself in the review, you should write comments that you would be comfortable signing your name to.

In your comments, use phrases like “ the authors’ discussion of X” instead of “ your discussion of X .” This will depersonalize the feedback and keep the focus on the manuscript instead of the authors.

General guidelines for effective feedback

• Justify your recommendation with concrete evidence and specific examples.
• Be specific so the authors know what they need to do to improve.
• Be thorough. This might be the only time you read the manuscript.
• Be professional and respectful. The authors will be reading these comments too.
• Remember to say what you liked about the manuscript!

Don’t

• Recommend additional experiments or  unnecessary elements that are out of scope for the study or for the journal criteria.
• Tell the authors exactly how to revise their manuscript—you don’t need to do their work for them.
• Use the review to promote your own research or hypotheses.
• Focus on typos and grammar. If the manuscript needs significant editing for language and writing quality, just mention this in your comments.
• Submit your review without proofreading it and checking everything one more time.

Before and After: Sample Reviewer Comments

Keeping in mind the guidelines above, how do you put your thoughts into words? Here are some sample “before” and “after” reviewer comments

✗ Before

“The authors appear to have no idea what they are talking about. I don’t think they have read any of the literature on this topic.”

✓ After

“The study fails to address how the findings relate to previous research in this area. The authors should rewrite their Introduction and Discussion to reference the related literature, especially recently published work such as Darwin et al.”

“The writing is so bad, it is practically unreadable. I could barely bring myself to finish it.”

“While the study appears to be sound, the language is unclear, making it difficult to follow. I advise the authors work with a writing coach or copyeditor to improve the flow and readability of the text.”

“It’s obvious that this type of experiment should have been included. I have no idea why the authors didn’t use it. This is a big mistake.”

“The authors are off to a good start, however, this study requires additional experiments, particularly [type of experiment]. Alternatively, the authors should include more information that clarifies and justifies their choice of methods.”

Suggested Language for Tricky Situations

You might find yourself in a situation where you’re not sure how to explain the problem or provide feedback in a constructive and respectful way. Here is some suggested language for common issues you might experience.

What you think : The manuscript is fatally flawed. What you could say: “The study does not appear to be sound” or “the authors have missed something crucial”.

What you think : You don’t completely understand the manuscript. What you could say : “The authors should clarify the following sections to avoid confusion…”

What you think : The technical details don’t make sense. What you could say : “The technical details should be expanded and clarified to ensure that readers understand exactly what the researchers studied.”

What you think: The writing is terrible. What you could say : “The authors should revise the language to improve readability.”

What you think : The authors have over-interpreted the findings. What you could say : “The authors aim to demonstrate [XYZ], however, the data does not fully support this conclusion. Specifically…”

What does a good review look like?

Check out the peer review examples at F1000 Research to see how other reviewers write up their reports and give constructive feedback to authors.

Time to Submit the Review!

Be sure you turn in your report on time. Need an extension? Tell the journal so that they know what to expect. If you need a lot of extra time, the journal might need to contact other reviewers or notify the author about the delay.

Tip: Building a relationship with an editor

You’ll be more likely to be asked to review again if you provide high-quality feedback and if you turn in the review on time. Especially if it’s your first review for a journal, it’s important to show that you are reliable. Prove yourself once and you’ll get asked to review again!

• Getting started as a reviewer
• Responding to an invitation
• Reading a manuscript
• Writing a peer review

The contents of the Peer Review Center are also available as a live, interactive training session, complete with slides, talking points, and activities. …

The contents of the Writing Center are also available as a live, interactive training session, complete with slides, talking points, and activities. …

There’s a lot to consider when deciding where to submit your work. Learn how to choose a journal that will help your study reach its audience, while reflecting your values as a researcher…

How to Write an Article Review: Template & Examples

An article review is an academic assignment that invites you to study a piece of academic research closely. Then, you should present its summary and critically evaluate it using the knowledge you’ve gained in class and during your independent study. If you get such a task at college or university, you shouldn’t confuse it with a response paper, which is a distinct assignment with other purposes (we’ll talk about it in detail below).

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In this article, prepared by Custom-Writing experts, you’ll find: 

• the intricacies of article review writing;
• the difference between an article review and similar assignments;
• a step-by-step algorithm for review composition;
• a couple of samples to guide you throughout the writing process.

So, if you wish to study our article review example and discover helpful writing tips, keep reading.

❓ What Is an Article Review?

• ✍️ Writing Steps

📑 Article Review Format

🔗 references.

An article review is an academic paper that summarizes and critically evaluates the information presented in your selected article. 

The first thing you should note when approaching the task of an article review is that not every article is suitable for this assignment. Let’s have a look at the variety of articles to understand what you can choose from.

Popular Vs. Scholarly Articles

In most cases, you’ll be required to review a scholarly, peer-reviewed article – one composed in compliance with rigorous academic standards. Yet, the Web is also full of popular articles that don’t present original scientific value and shouldn’t be selected for a review.  

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Not sure how to distinguish these two types? Here is a comparative table to help you out.

Article Review vs. Response Paper

Now, let’s consider the difference between an article review and a response paper:

• If you’re assigned to critique a scholarly article , you will need to compose an article review .  
• If your subject of analysis is a popular article , you can respond to it with a well-crafted response paper .  

The reason for such distinctions is the quality and structure of these two article types. Peer-reviewed, scholarly articles have clear-cut quality criteria, allowing you to conduct and present a structured assessment of the assigned material. Popular magazines have loose or non-existent quality criteria and don’t offer an opportunity for structured evaluation. So, they are only fit for a subjective response, in which you can summarize your reactions and emotions related to the reading material.  

All in all, you can structure your response assignments as outlined in the tips below.

✍️ How to Write an Article Review: Step by Step

Here is a tried and tested algorithm for article review writing from our experts. We’ll consider only the critical review variety of this academic assignment. So, let’s get down to the stages you need to cover to get a stellar review.  

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Read the Article

As with any reviews, reports, and critiques, you must first familiarize yourself with the assigned material. It’s impossible to review something you haven’t read, so set some time for close, careful reading of the article to identify:

• Its topic.  
• Its type.  
• The author’s main points and message. 
• The arguments they use to prove their points. 
• The methodology they use to approach the subject. 

In terms of research type , your article will usually belong to one of three types explained below. 

Summarize the Article

Now that you’ve read the text and have a general impression of the content, it’s time to summarize it for your readers. Look into the article’s text closely to determine:

• The thesis statement , or general message of the author.  
• Research question, purpose, and context of research.  
• Supporting points for the author’s assumptions and claims.  
• Major findings and supporting evidence.  

As you study the article thoroughly, make notes on the margins or write these elements out on a sheet of paper. You can also apply a different technique: read the text section by section and formulate its gist in one phrase or sentence. Once you’re done, you’ll have a summary skeleton in front of you.

Evaluate the Article

The next step of review is content evaluation. Keep in mind that various research types will require a different set of review questions. Here is a complete list of evaluation points you can include.

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Write the Text

After completing the critical review stage, it’s time to compose your article review.

The format of this assignment is standard – you will have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The introduction should present your article and summarize its content. The body will contain a structured review according to all four dimensions covered in the previous section. The concluding part will typically recap all the main points you’ve identified during your assessment.  

It is essential to note that an article review is, first of all, an academic assignment. Therefore, it should follow all rules and conventions of academic composition, such as:

• No contractions . Don’t use short forms, such as “don’t,” “can’t,” “I’ll,” etc. in academic writing. You need to spell out all those words.  
• Formal language and style . Avoid conversational phrasing and words that you would naturally use in blog posts or informal communication. For example, don’t use words like “pretty,” “kind of,” and “like.”  
• Third-person narrative . Academic reviews should be written from the third-person point of view, avoiding statements like “I think,” “in my opinion,” and so on.  
• No conversational forms . You shouldn’t turn to your readers directly in the text by addressing them with the pronoun “you.” It’s vital to keep the narrative neutral and impersonal.  
• Proper abbreviation use . Consult the list of correct abbreviations , like “e.g.” or “i.e.,” for use in your academic writing. If you use informal abbreviations like “FYA” or “f.i.,” your professor will reduce the grade.  
• Complete sentences . Make sure your sentences contain the subject and the predicate; avoid shortened or sketch-form phrases suitable for a draft only.  
• No conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence . Remember the FANBOYS rule – don’t start a sentence with words like “and” or “but.” They often seem the right way to build a coherent narrative, but academic writing rules disfavor such usage.  
• No abbreviations or figures at the beginning of a sentence . Never start a sentence with a number — spell it out if you need to use it anyway. Besides, sentences should never begin with abbreviations like “e.g.”  

Finally, a vital rule for an article review is properly formatting the citations. We’ll discuss the correct use of citation styles in the following section.

When composing an article review, keep these points in mind:

• Start with a full reference to the reviewed article so the reader can locate it quickly.  
• Ensure correct formatting of in-text references.  
• Provide a complete list of used external sources on the last page of the review – your bibliographical entries .  

You’ll need to understand the rules of your chosen citation style to meet all these requirements. Below, we’ll discuss the two most common referencing styles – APA and MLA.

Article Review in APA

When you need to compose an article review in the APA format , here is the general bibliographical entry format you should use for journal articles on your reference page:  

• Author’s last name, First initial. Middle initial. (Year of Publication). Name of the article. Name of the Journal, volume (number), pp. #-#. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Horigian, V. E., Schmidt, R. D., & Feaster, D. J. (2021). Loneliness, mental health, and substance use among US young adults during COVID-19. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 53 (1), pp. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2020.1836435

Your in-text citations should follow the author-date format like this:

• If you paraphrase the source and mention the author in the text: According to Horigian et al. (2021), young adults experienced increased levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety during the pandemic. 
• If you paraphrase the source and don’t mention the author in the text: Young adults experienced increased levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety during the pandemic (Horigian et al., 2021). 
• If you quote the source: As Horigian et al. (2021) point out, there were “elevated levels of loneliness, depression, anxiety, alcohol use, and drug use among young adults during COVID-19” (p. 6). 

Note that your in-text citations should include “et al.,” as in the examples above, if your article has 3 or more authors. If you have one or two authors, your in-text citations would look like this:

• One author: “According to Smith (2020), depression is…” or “Depression is … (Smith, 2020).”
• Two authors: “According to Smith and Brown (2020), anxiety means…” or “Anxiety means (Smith & Brown, 2020).”

Finally, in case you have to review a book or a website article, here are the general formats for citing these source types on your APA reference list.

Article Review in MLA

If your assignment requires MLA-format referencing, here’s the general format you should use for citing journal articles on your Works Cited page: 

• Author’s last name, First name. “Title of an Article.” Title of the Journal , vol. #, no. #, year, pp. #-#. 

Horigian, Viviana E., et al. “Loneliness, Mental Health, and Substance Use Among US Young Adults During COVID-19.” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs , vol. 53, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-9.

In-text citations in the MLA format follow the author-page citation format and look like this:

• According to Horigian et al., young adults experienced increased levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety during the pandemic (6).
• Young adults experienced increased levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety during the pandemic (Horigian et al. 6).

Like in APA, the abbreviation “et al.” is only needed in MLA if your article has 3 or more authors.

If you need to cite a book or a website page, here are the general MLA formats for these types of sources.

✅ Article Review Template

Here is a handy, universal article review template to help you move on with any review assignment. We’ve tried to make it as generic as possible to guide you in the academic process.

📝 Article Review Examples

The theory is good, but practice is even better. Thus, we’ve created three brief examples to show you how to write an article review. You can study the full-text samples by following the links.

📃 Men, Women, & Money   

This article review examines a famous piece, “Men, Women & Money – How the Sexes Differ with Their Finances,” published by Amy Livingston in 2020. The author of this article claims that men generally spend more money than women. She makes this conclusion from a close analysis of gender-specific expenditures across five main categories: food, clothing, cars, entertainment, and general spending patterns. Livingston also looks at men’s approach to saving to argue that counter to the common perception of women’s light-hearted attitude to money, men are those who spend more on average.  

📃 When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism   

This is a review of Jonathan Heidt’s 2016 article titled “When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism,” written as an advocacy of right-wing populism rising in many Western states. The author illustrates the case with the election of Donald Trump as the US President and the rise of right-wing rhetoric in many Western countries. These examples show how nationalist sentiment represents a reaction to global immigration and a failure of globalization.  

📃 Sleep Deprivation   

This is a review of the American Heart Association’s article titled “The Dangers of Sleep Deprivation.” It discusses how the national organization concerned with the American population’s cardiovascular health links the lack of high-quality sleep to far-reaching health consequences. The organization’s experts reveal how a consistent lack of sleep leads to Alzheimer’s disease development, obesity, type 2 diabetes, etc.  

✏️ Article Review FAQ

A high-quality article review should summarize the assigned article’s content and offer data-backed reactions and evaluations of its quality in terms of the article’s purpose, methodology, and data used to argue the main points. It should be detailed, comprehensive, objective, and evidence-based.

The purpose of writing a review is to allow students to reflect on research quality and showcase their critical thinking and evaluation skills. Students should exhibit their mastery of close reading of research publications and their unbiased assessment.

The content of your article review will be the same in any format, with the only difference in the assignment’s formatting before submission. Ensure you have a separate title page made according to APA standards and cite sources using the parenthetical author-date referencing format.

You need to take a closer look at various dimensions of an assigned article to compose a valuable review. Study the author’s object of analysis, the purpose of their research, the chosen method, data, and findings. Evaluate all these dimensions critically to see whether the author has achieved the initial goals. Finally, offer improvement recommendations to add a critique aspect to your paper.

• Scientific Article Review: Duke University  
• Book and Article Reviews: William & Mary, Writing Resources Center  
• Sample Format for Reviewing a Journal Article: Boonshoft School of Medicine  
• Research Paper Review – Structure and Format Guidelines: New Jersey Institute of Technology  
• Article Review: University of Waterloo  
• Article Review: University of South Australia  
• How to Write a Journal Article Review: University of Newcastle Library Guides  
• Writing Help: The Article Review: Central Michigan University Libraries  
• Write a Critical Review of a Scientific Journal Article: McLaughlin Library  
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The size of each box is proportional to the weight of the study in relation to the pooled estimate.

eFigure 1. PRISMA flow diagram

eFigure 2. Prevalence of MRI abnormalities in FEP: funnel plot of studies

eFigure 3. Prevalence of MRI abnormalities in FEP: forest plots of MRI abnormalities by anatomical subtype

eFigure 4. Prevalence of MRI abnormalities in FEP: forest plots of clinically relevant MRI abnormalities by anatomical subtype

eFigure 5. Risk ratio of MRI abnormalities in FEP: forest plots of all MRI abnormalities in psychosis

eFigure 6. Forest plot of clinically relevant MRI abnormalities: leave one out sensitivity analysis

eTable 1. Summary of included studies

eTable 2. Summary of recruitment, screening, and matching criteria of healthy controls

eTable 3. Newcastle Ottawa Scale results

eTable 4. Neuroanatomical Groupings

eReferences

Data sharing statement

• Concerns Regarding Strength of Conclusions in Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Neuroradiological Abnormalities in First-Episode Psychosis JAMA Psychiatry Comment & Response January 1, 2024 Anil N. Makam, MD, MAS
• Concerns Regarding Strength of Conclusions in Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Neuroradiological Abnormalities in First-Episode Psychosis JAMA Psychiatry Comment & Response January 1, 2024 Benjamin Dralle, MD; Robert J. Morgan, MD, PhD
• Concerns Regarding Strength of Conclusions in Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Neuroradiological Abnormalities in First-Episode Psychosis JAMA Psychiatry Comment & Response January 1, 2024 Malcolm Forbes, MBBS; Stephen Stuckey, MD; Steve Kisely, MD, PhD

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Blackman G , Neri G , Al-Doori O, et al. Prevalence of Neuroradiological Abnormalities in First-Episode Psychosis : A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis . JAMA Psychiatry. 2023;80(10):1047–1054. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.2225

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Prevalence of Neuroradiological Abnormalities in First-Episode Psychosis : A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

• 1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, United Kingdom
• 2 Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
• 3 South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
• 4 Department of Neuroradiology, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
• 5 Department of Radiology, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
• 6 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
• 7 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ludwig-Maximilian-University, Munich, Germany
• 8 Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany
• 9 Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
• Comment & Response Concerns Regarding Strength of Conclusions in Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Neuroradiological Abnormalities in First-Episode Psychosis Anil N. Makam, MD, MAS JAMA Psychiatry
• Comment & Response Concerns Regarding Strength of Conclusions in Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Neuroradiological Abnormalities in First-Episode Psychosis Benjamin Dralle, MD; Robert J. Morgan, MD, PhD JAMA Psychiatry
• Comment & Response Concerns Regarding Strength of Conclusions in Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Neuroradiological Abnormalities in First-Episode Psychosis Malcolm Forbes, MBBS; Stephen Stuckey, MD; Steve Kisely, MD, PhD JAMA Psychiatry

Question   How common are neuroradiological abnormalities in first-episode psychosis?

Findings   In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we found approximately 6% of patients with first-episode psychosis had an abnormality that required a change in clinical management. The number of patients needed to scan to detect 1 clinically relevant abnormality was estimated to be 18.

Meaning   These findings support the routine use of magnetic resonance imaging as part of the initial assessment in patients presenting with first-episode psychosis.

Importance   Individuals presenting with first-episode psychosis (FEP) may have a secondary (“organic”) etiology to their symptoms that can be identified using neuroimaging. Because failure to detect such cases at an early stage can have serious clinical consequences, it has been suggested that brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) should be mandatory for all patients presenting with FEP. However, this remains a controversial issue, partly because the prevalence of clinically relevant MRI abnormalities in this group is unclear.

Objective   To derive a meta-analytic estimate of the prevalence of clinically relevant neuroradiological abnormalities in FEP.

Data Sources   Electronic databases Ovid, MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase, PsychINFO, and Global Health were searched up to July 2021. References and citations of included articles and review articles were also searched.

Study Selection   Magnetic resonance imaging studies of patients with FEP were included if they reported the frequency of intracranial radiological abnormalities.

Data Extraction and Synthesis   Independent extraction was undertaken by 3 researchers and a random-effects meta-analysis of pooled proportions was calculated. Moderators were tested using subgroup and meta-regression analyses. Heterogeneity was evaluated using the I 2 index. The robustness of results was evaluated using sensitivity analyses. Publication bias was assessed using funnel plots and Egger tests.

Main Outcomes and Measures   Proportion of patients with a clinically relevant radiological abnormality (defined as a change in clinical management or diagnosis); number of patients needed to scan to detect 1 such abnormality (number needed to assess [NNA]).

Results   Twelve independent studies (13 samples) comprising 1613 patients with FEP were included. Of these patients, 26.4% (95% CI, 16.3%-37.9%; NNA of 4) had an intracranial radiological abnormality, and 5.9% (95% CI, 3.2%-9.0%) had a clinically relevant abnormality, yielding an NNA of 18. There were high degrees of heterogeneity among the studies for these outcomes, 95% to 73%, respectively. The most common type of clinically relevant finding was white matter abnormalities, with a prevalence of 0.9% (95% CI, 0%-2.8%), followed by cysts, with a prevalence of 0.5% (95% CI, 0%-1.4%).

Conclusions and Relevance   This systematic review and meta-analysis found that 5.9% of patients presenting with a first episode of psychosis had a clinically relevant finding on MRI. Because the consequences of not detecting these abnormalities can be serious, these findings support the use of MRI as part of the initial clinical assessment of all patients with FEP.

The early diagnosis of secondary psychosis, where a psychotic disorder is caused by another medical condition, is an indispensable but complex diagnostic task in psychiatry. Because several causes of secondary psychosis result in structural brain abnormalities, 1 brain imaging is considered essential by many psychiatrists during the assessment phase. 2 Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a safe and well-tolerated 3 technique that has high sensitivity for detecting intracranial abnormalities. Since its introduction more than 40 years ago, structural MRI has become increasingly available, and the costs of scanning have progressively reduced. 4 However, there is no consensus as to whether MRI scanning should be a mandatory part of the clinical assessment of patients presenting with a first episode of psychosis (FEP). Some guidelines recommend scanning all patients with FEP, 5 while others recommend that MRI be restricted to cases in which a secondary cause is suspected. 6

Most radiological abnormalities in patients with FEP are incidental and do not require any clinical action. However, a minority of abnormalities lead to a change to a patient’s clinical care. A barrier to resolving the debate about the routine use of MRI in the assessment of FEP has been uncertainty about the prevalence of clinically relevant abnormalities, with estimates ranging from 0% 7 to more than 10%. 8 Beyond guidelines for individual clinical management, there is also the issue of population health. In otherwise healthy individuals, white matter hyperintensities reliably predict later cognitive decline, greater cerebrovascular risk, and increased mortality in epidemiological studies, 9 , 10 suggesting that the presence of neuroradiological abnormalities may be an indicator of neurological health.

We sought to clarify the prevalence of intracranial abnormalities in FEP by undertaking the first meta-analysis of such studies to our knowledge. We also sought to establish the prevalence of clinically relevant abnormalities that led to a change in diagnosis or management. In addition, we examined the influence of study, patient, and imaging characteristics on outcome.

A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted in accordance with Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology ( MOOSE ) 11 and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses ( PRISMA ) guidelines, 12 and the study was prospectively registered on PROSPERO ( CRD42020140917 ). See the eMethods in Supplement 1 for details of the search strategy, eligibility criteria, and data extraction and encoding. In brief, we searched the databases Ovid, MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase, PsychINFO, and Global Health up to July 2021. References and citations of included articles and review articles were also searched.

Included studies were assessed for the risk of bias using a 10-item tool developed for prevalence studies 13 (eTable 3 in Supplement 1 ). The sum was calculated to derive a summary score. Studies were categorized based on the overall score as high (0-3), moderate (4-6), or low (7-10) risk of bias using well-established cutoffs. Studies at high risk of bias were excluded from the meta-analysis.

A radiological abnormality was defined as any intracranial finding, regardless of the evidence to suggest a causal relationship with psychosis. Radiological abnormalities were further categorized by clinical relevance. A clinically relevant finding was defined as an abnormality that was reported by the study authors as having led to a change in management (eg, referral to a medical specialty) or diagnosis. Abnormalities were also grouped into the following neuroanatomical categories: white matter, vascular (excluding white matter), ventricular, cyst, pituitary, tumor, cerebral atrophy, and other (ie, not falling into any of the aforementioned categories) by a psychiatrist (G.B.) and a neuroradiologist (A.M.), with the latter blind to diagnosis (eMethods in Supplement 1 ).

For each study, the proportion of patients with FEP and a radiological abnormality was calculated, along with the 95% CI based on the Score (Wilson) method. 14 A Freeman-Tukey double arcsine transformation 15 was used to stabilize the variance because the proportion of abnormal scans was expected to be low. 16 Transformed proportions were meta-analyzed using a random-effects inverse variance method 17 as methodological heterogeneity was anticipated. To assess the clinical usefulness of MRI, the estimated number of patients needed to be scanned to detect 1 abnormality (number needed to assess [NNA]) was calculated, based on the reciprocal of the prevalence estimate, 18 which is comparable with the numbers-needed-to-treat 19 statistic: NNA = 1 / (proportion with abnormality).

We also estimated the prevalence of the neuroanatomical subtypes of abnormalities (eTable 4 in Supplement 1 ). In addition, for studies that included a healthy control group, we calculated the risk ratio (relative risk) to explore the specific association between neuroradiological abnormalities and psychosis.

The significance level was set to P  ≤ .05, and all analyses were performed using R version 4.2.1 20 with meta-analyses performed using meta. 21 , 22 Further details on the statistical analysis are reported in the eMethods in Supplement 1 , and all code and data are included in an online archive (link available on request).

Heterogeneity was assessed using the Cochran Q statistic, as well as the I 2 index, which is independent of the number of studies. Risk of publication bias was assessed thorough visual inspection of funnel plots and an Egger test. 23 Modifiers of clinically relevant abnormalities were assessed through subgroup analysis and meta regression provided there were sufficient data points. For categorical variables, we explored the effect of the sample (research vs clinical) and field strength (3 T vs <3 T) using subgroup analysis based on the Cochran Q statistic. For continuous variables, we explored the effect of sample age, psychosis duration, and year of publication using meta-regression provided at least 6 studies could be included. 24

Sensitivity analyses were performed to determine the effect of studies (1) with a mean patient age older than 35 years, (2) where assessment was performed by a nonradiologist, and (3) based on a research sample. Influential study analysis using the leave-1-out paradigm 25 was performed using the dmetar package. 26 This was performed to identify any study with an excessive influence on the pooled effect size and/or that contributed substantially to between-study heterogeneity.

The search strategy yielded 1682 publications from the database search and other sources. After duplicates were removed and abstracts screened, 240 publications were reviewed in full. eFigure 1 in Supplement 1 shows the PRISMA flowchart. In 1 study, patients with FEP had been pooled with patients with multiepisode psychosis 8 ; however, it was possible to estimate the proportion of abnormalities in the FEP subgroup group based on published details and consultation with the study authors (eMethods in Supplement 1 ). In another study, only white matter abnormalities were reported, 27 so this study was not entered into the main meta-analysis.

Twelve studies were eligible, 3 , 7 , 8 , 27 - 35 with no overlapping samples (eTable 1 in Supplement 1 contains study characteristics). Studies were published between 1991 and 2021 and reported a pooled sample of 1613 patients with FEP. Nine studies reported clinically relevant abnormalities, 3 , 7 , 8 , 27 - 30 , 32 , 34 with a pooled sample of 1318 patients. Eight studies included a healthy control group, 3 , 8 , 27 , 29 , 30 , 33 - 36 with a pooled sample of 3265 patients (FEP = 1399; control = 1866). (eTable 2 in Supplement 1 describes the recruitment, screening, and matching of healthy controls for each study.) Studies were conducted in Europe (n = 7), North America (n = 4), Australasia (n = 1), and South America (n = 1). Ten studies excluded patients in whom a potential secondary cause of psychosis was suspected before neuroimaging, such as a positive finding on a neurological examination (not reported in 2 studies).

In a minority of studies, the total number of abnormalities in the sample were reported, rather than the number of patients with an abnormality. A post hoc sensitivity analysis was therefore performed to restrict to studies that reported the total number of patients with an abnormality. All studies reporting clinically relevant abnormalities reported this at the patient level.

The FEP sample size ranged from 20 35 to 349 patients. 8 Mean age ranged from 20 to 60 years, and the proportion of female patients ranged from 27% to 70%. Five studies reported data from routine clinical practice, and 6 studies reported data from clinical research studies. One study reported data from both routine clinical practice and clinical research. 3 For the purposes of subsequent analysis, this study was split into research and clinical subsamples (therefore, 13 samples are considered henceforth). Antipsychotic status at the time of neuroimaging was reported in 6 samples (n = 714). Among these, the proportion of patients receiving antipsychotic medication was 65%. Duration of psychosis was reported in 6 samples (n = 665) and ranged between 4 and 52 weeks with the exception of 1 study, which had a mean duration of 90 weeks. 35

Scanner field strength was reported in 10 samples, with 1.5 T (n = 6) being the most common. MRI scans were interpreted by a neuroradiologist in 9 samples. In the other 3 samples, MRI scans were reported by a general radiologist (n = 1) or a psychiatrist (n = 1), or the clinician was unspecified (n = 1). In 6 samples, raters were blind to clinical status (unreported in 8 samples).

The quality assessment score ranged from 4 to 8 of 10 (eTable 2 in Supplement 1 ). Overall, 10 samples were at medium risk and 3 were at low risk of bias. No studies were at high risk of bias.

The proportion of patients with any abnormality was calculable for 12 samples (11 studies) because 1 study only reported the presence or absence of white matter abnormalities. 27 The pooled prevalence was 26.4% (95% CI, 16.3%-37.9%), with a corresponding NNA of 4 (95% CI, 3-7) ( Figure 1 ). The I 2 statistic was 95%, indicating a high degree of heterogeneity. The proportion of patients with a clinically relevant abnormality was calculable for 10 samples (9 studies). In the other samples, clinically relevant abnormalities were grouped with non–clinically relevant abnormalities. 29 , 31 , 33 The pooled prevalence was 5.9% (95% CI, 3.2%-9.0%), with a corresponding NNA of 18 (95% CI, 12-31). The I 2 statistic was 73%, indicating moderate heterogeneity.

As part of the secondary analysis, we calculated the prevalence of specific neuroanatomical abnormalities among patients with FEP ( Figure 2 ). Overall, white matter abnormalities were the most common (typically white matter hyperintensities), with a prevalence of 7.9% (95% CI, 3.0% to 14.4%), followed by ventricular abnormalities (typically ventricular enlargement), with a prevalence of 5.0% (95% CI, −1.5% to 10.0%) (eFigure 3 in Supplement 1 ). Among clinically relevant abnormalities, white matter abnormalities were the most common, with a prevalence of 0.9% (95% CI, 0% to 2.8%), followed by cysts, with a prevalence of 0.5% (95% CI, 0% to 1.4%) ( Figure 2 and eFigure 4 in Supplement 1 ).

We also calculated the pooled risk ratio of neuroanatomical abnormalities in patients with FEP vs healthy controls. Patients with FEP had a relative risk of 2.8 (95% CI, 1.3-5.9; k = 9 studies) for any radiological abnormality compared with heathy controls (eFigure 5A in Supplement 1 ). Among abnormalities that were clinically relevant, patients with FEP had a relative risk of 1.5 (95% CI, 0.8-2.8) compared with heathy controls (eFigure 5B in Supplement 1 ); however, a leave-1-out sensitivity analysis (below) indicated that this may be an underestimate.

Meta-regression found no association between the prevalence of clinically relevant abnormalities and publication year (k = 10, P  = .07) or sample age (k = 9, P  = .95). There were insufficient samples (k = 3) to explore the effect of psychosis duration. Subgroup analysis found no association for the effect of sample type (k = 10, P  = .99) or field strength (k = 12, P  = .16).

We repeated the analysis excluding samples (1) with a mean patient age older than 35 years, (2) where assessment was performed by a nonradiologist, and (3) that recruited patients for research. Removing studies under any 1 of these conditions did not result in pooled estimates becoming nonsignificant. Leave-1-out sensitivity analysis did not identify any influential samples for the meta-analysis of prevalence (eFigure 6 in Supplement 1 ). Leave-1-out sensitivity analysis indicated that the study by Khandanpour et al 30 was influential in the meta-analysis of relative risk for any abnormality, and removal adjusted the pooled relative risk to 1.8 (95% CI, 1.1-3.2). For the meta-analysis of relative risk for clinically relevant abnormalities, the study by Sommer et al 8 was identified as influential, and removal adjusted the pooled relative risk to 2.1 (95% CI, 1.1-4.0).

Inspection of funnel plots suggested no clear evidence of publication bias (eFigure 2 in Supplement 1 ), which was confirmed by nonsignificant Egger test results for studies reporting any abnormalities ( P  = .36) and those reporting clinically relevant abnormalities ( P  = .70).

The estimated prevalence of a radiological MRI abnormality in patients with FEP was 26%, while that of a clinically relevant abnormality was 6%. Patients with FEP had a significantly higher prevalence of radiological abnormalities overall, as well as clinically relevant abnormalities compared with healthy controls, after removal of an outlier. White matter abnormalities, predominantly small hyperintensities, were the most common finding overall and the most common clinically relevant finding. The NNA to detect 1 clinically relevant abnormality was 18.

Although the prevalence of neuroradiological abnormalities in FEP has previously been explored in systematic reviews, 4 , 37 , 38 to our knowledge, this is the first study to derive a meta-analytic estimate based on MRI data. Previous studies have reported conflicting results. The largest MRI study of patients with psychosis (n = 656) reported a higher prevalence of clinically relevant abnormalities (10.3%) in their first episode subsample compared with our meta-analytic estimate but essentially found no difference from healthy controls, who had a similarly high prevalence of clinically relevant abnormalities (11.8%). 8 This study is notable for being the only one in our meta-analysis that reported the prevalence of clinically relevant abnormalities to be lower in patients with psychosis than in controls and was identified as an outlier in the leave-1-out sensitivity analysis. Studies exploring radiological abnormalities in patients with psychosis using computed tomography (CT) have yielded substantially lower estimates than MRI. 4 , 39 This likely reflects the relative insensitivity of CT to detect intracranial abnormalities in patients with psychosis.

In otherwise healthy individuals, the prevalence of incidental clinically relevant brain abnormalities found on MRI is estimated to be 1.4% 40 to 2.7%. 18 In our study, we were able to derive the first meta-analytic estimate of the relative risk of clinically relevant brain abnormalities in FEP compared with asymptomatic healthy individuals. Our findings suggest a 2-fold increased risk, once adjusted for outliers. Research MRI studies have identified widespread differences in gray and white matter density in FEP compared with controls. However, these studies typically use voxel-based morphometry and involve alterations that are too small to be detected by the naked eye. Although most radiological abnormalities in FEP do not necessitate a change in management, it is worth noting that these apparently benign findings may be associated with relatively poor outcomes across the life span 41 and a marker of neurovascular health. 42 This suggests that they could reflect the macroscopic sequelae of suboptimal brain development and as such may represent determinants of a poor outcome, even if they do not lead to a diagnosis of secondary psychosis.

The most common neuroradiological abnormality was white matter abnormalities, predominantly small hyperintensities. They were also the most common clinically relevant abnormality reported. This finding is consistent with independent neuroimaging evidence that psychosis is associated with widely distributed anatomical and functional dysconnectivity. 43 - 45 White matter lesions are closely associated with neuroinflammatory processes in psychosis, 46 as well as immune-mediated neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis, 47 supporting an etiological role of the immune system in psychosis.

Interestingly, we found the prevalence of brain tumors in FEP was very low (with the estimated NNA to detect 1 tumor of around 1000) despite this being one of the main concerns of psychiatrists. However, because all the studies in this meta-analysis excluded patients with clinical evidence suggestive of a secondary medical (“organic”) cause, our results are likely to underestimate the true prevalence of tumors in patients with FEP more broadly, as such cases are more likely to present with neurologic features, such as apraxia, visual field deficits, and anomia. 48

The heterogeneity between studies in the proportion of patients with any type of abnormality was large. In contrast, heterogeneity for clinically relevant abnormalities was moderate. Between-study differences in design, eligibility criteria, neuroimaging methods, and radiological assessment may have contributed to this statistical heterogeneity. We explored its basis using subgroup analysis and meta-regression. The former found no difference between studies based on sample type, rater, or field strength, and the latter found that the effects of patient age and publication year were not significant. We were not able to explore the effect of psychosis duration because of insufficient data.

We assessed the robustness of the findings using sensitivity analyses. One study 49 was identified as an outlier in the meta-analysis of risk for clinical abnormalities, and its removal resulted in the risk ratio becoming significant. Furthermore, the results remained robust to several sensitivity analyses. Our group-level estimates assumed that each patient had a maximum of 1 type of abnormality, and findings did not change substantially at a group level when we excluded studies in which this assumption could not be confirmed.

Should MRI be routinely performed in patients with FEP? One approach to resolving this debate is to consider the net clinical benefit. We were able to ascertain that 1 in 18 patients had a change in management after an MRI, and therefore it could be argued they received some clinical benefit. In contrast, clinical risks associated with MRI scanning are minimal, and most patients find the procedure acceptable. 3 Another approach is to consider the economic implications. The financial costs of a brain MRI vary considerably, and therefore the economic case for routine screening is also likely to vary. In Europe, the average cost is around $264 (€250), including evaluation by a radiologist. Based on the estimated NNA, the cost to detect 1 clinically relevant abnormality is approximately $4752 (€4500). In comparison, the financial cost is substantially higher in the United States. However, the potential costs associated with failing to identify a clinically relevant abnormality (that may include a potentially reversible cause) are also likely to be higher. While further analysis is indicated to explore the net economic benefits, provisional evaluation based on clinical grounds would favor offering MRI to all patients with FEP.

This meta-analysis provides the most precise estimate of the prevalence of neuroradiological abnormalities in FEP in the literature to date. Subgroup and meta-regression permitted the exploration of moderating factors and causes of heterogeneity, such as study characteristics and imaging parameters. Furthermore, by comparing neuroradiological abnormalities in FEP with healthy controls, we were able to determine the specificity of these abnormalities. Importantly, in most studies, FEP samples were matched with healthy controls. Other strengths included a rigorous approach to study identification and data extraction. Furthermore, because the meta-analysis focused on patients with FEP, the findings are unlikely to have been confounded by the influence of chronic illness or its treatment.

This study also had limitations. First, the studies we examined may not have included patients who were particularly unwell and/or lacked capacity. Second, around half of the studies involved patients who had undergone MRI as part of research rather than routine clinical care, and all the studies had excluded patients in whom there was clinical evidence of a potential secondary cause (based on examination and/or psychiatric assessment). These factors are likely to have resulted in an underestimate of the prevalence of clinically relevant radiological abnormalities in FEP, suggesting the true figure may be higher. Third, we assumed each patient had only 1 type of radiological abnormality. However, in a few studies, this could not be confirmed, which may have inflated the overall estimate (of note, this limitation did not apply to our estimate of clinically relevant abnormalities). Fourth, because we used aggregate data, we were unable to explore the influence of potentially relevant patient-level characteristics. Fifth, information on duration of illness and antipsychotic exposure was unavailable in several studies. Finally, included studies mostly consisted of relatively small samples, which reduces statistical precision.

Follow-up data would help determine the proportion of clinically relevant radiological abnormalities that are treatable. Similarly, it would be useful to clarify whether the presence of radiological abnormalities are associated with adverse long-term clinical outcomes. If this was the case, this may suggest a role for MRI in providing prognostic information in addition to its diagnostic role. Secondary causes of psychosis are associated with particular clinical variables, such as visual hallucinations 50 - 52 and delusions of misidentification. 53 Systematic assessment of these risk factors could complement the use of MRI to help clinicians identify patients with a secondary etiology. Further research is also indicated to explore the optimal MRI parameters for detecting radiological abnormalities.

This systematic review and meta-analysis found that around 6% of patients presenting with psychosis have a clinically relevant radiological abnormality on MRI, with a corresponding NNA of 18. These findings provide a rationale for the use of MRI in the clinical assessment of all patients presenting with psychosis. As the availability of MRI increases and its costs decrease, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify not making MRI a mandatory part of the clinical assessment of FEP.

Accepted for Publication: May 8, 2023.

Published Online: July 12, 2023. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.2225

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License . © 2023 Blackman G et al. JAMA Psychiatry .

Corresponding Author: Graham Blackman, MBChB, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX, United Kingdom ( [email protected] ).

Author Contributions: Dr Blackman had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Drs Kempton and McGuire contributed equally as co–senior authors.

Concept and design: Blackman, Neri, Al-Doori, Pollak, Hird, Koutsouleris, McGuire.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Blackman, Neri, Al-Doori, Teixeira-Dias, Mazumder, Pollak, Bell, Kempton, McGuire.

Drafting of the manuscript: Blackman, Al-Doori, Teixeira-Dias, Kempton, McGuire.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Blackman, Neri, Al-Doori, Mazumder, Pollak, Hird, Koutsouleris, Bell, McGuire.

Statistical analysis: Blackman, Neri, Al-Doori, Teixeira-Dias, Bell.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Blackman, Neri, Al-Doori, Teixeira-Dias, Bell, McGuire.

Supervision: Blackman, Al-Doori, Pollak, Hird, Koutsouleris, Kempton, McGuire.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported.

Data Sharing Statement: See Supplement 2 .

Additional Contributions: We thank Iris Sommer, MD, PhD, Department of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, and Inge Winter-van Rossum, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, for their assistance. They received no compensation for their contribution.

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Student Opinion

Do You Keep a Journal?

What does journaling do for you?

By Jeremy Engle

Do you have a journal or a diary? If so, what do you like to write about in it, and why? Do you use it to process your feelings or rant about your friends and family? Or do you write to ruminate on your crushes and worries? Do you detail your dreams — both literal and figurative?

If you don’t journal, have you ever thought about starting but just didn’t know how?

In a guest essay, “ An Analog Library of All the Lives I’ve Lived ,” Josephine Sittenfeld writes about the power of journals — and the stories they tell about us:

After a routine iPhone update, a new Journal app recently appeared. Intrigued, I tapped it, which led to the instruction “Enable journaling suggestions.” If I agreed, my phone promised to give prompts like “Take a moment to write about something special in your life you’ve been taking for granted” and “Take a look around you and take a picture of something you’ve overlooked. What do you notice about it?” Apple is attempting to lure me into the world of Journaling 2.0, complete with the help of artificial intelligence. The app promises meaningful reflection, apparently gleaned from my phone usage, that I can share with people around me via Bluetooth. In the multipage permissions, the creepiest line explained that all I would have to do is tap a button for the app to utilize “information about your workouts, media use, communications and photos,” which would “create meaningful suggestions for you.” This isn’t the first time outside forces have suggested I reflect on my life. About 34 years ago, when I was 9, a family member gave me a “Ramona Quimby Diary.” The spiral-bound book contained a page of stickers that said, “Extra special!” and “Private! Keep out!” as well as leading prompts like, “This month I was really happy when …” and “The nicest person in my class is ….” Around then, a friend of my parents gave me another journal, with the title “My Private World.” That cover has a pensive, apron-wearing, barefoot girl seated under a sinewy tree, nestled alongside a dog, two cats and a book, with rolling mountains in the distance. I’ve never felt a connection to the girl, blissfully lost in thought in her bucolic setting. But the journal’s title? That spoke to me. It still does. I’ve kept a journal ever since. I have an oversize Tupperware bin in my basement containing dozens of musty diaries. Each is filled with anecdotes from my life, scrawled in sloppy handwriting, riddled with misspellings. They’re filled with rants about friends, family and feelings. They contain my shames and terrors, my crushes, my dreams (both literal and figurative), my worries and mundane accounts of more than 30 years of my life.

Ms. Sittenfeld concludes her essay by comparing the power of analog journals to digital ones:

I recently photographed my diaries set against sentimental garments: delicate, pint-size floral dresses my mom saved from the 1980s and stretched-out extra-large T-shirts from the 1990s. By making these photographs, I entered a portal to my youth, simultaneously connecting with my angsty, decorative, teenage self and appreciating her from afar. They remind me of who I was, who I’ve always been and, to some extent, who I still am. Whether or not it’s healthy, on some level, holding on to the stuff of my youth makes it more bearable to swallow the fact that time is always, incessantly, marching on. Which brings me back to that iPhone update. I still don’t fully understand Apple’s new Journal app. If it weren’t for the eerie fact that it mines phone usage to prompt reflection, I would be open to trying it. Regardless, I’m curious what changes when journaling moves into the cloud. Paging through an old diary is an emotional, time-travel experience. If a teenager today uses the Journal app, what will her experience be decades from now? Assuming the technology exists to retrieve her writing, will revisiting an online journal have the same power to transport her back in time? What’s her online equivalent of me holding the crispy, lined pages of my spiral-bound books from decades ago, touching the stickers, seeing my childhood handwriting and doodles in the margins?

Students, read the entire essay and then tell us:

Do you keep a diary or a journal? If so, what do you like to write about?

If you don’t journal, why not? Did reading the article persuade you to try? What else do you do to process or chronicle each day?

What do you see as the benefits of journaling? What advice would you give to others who are hesitant to keep a diary or are not sure what to write about?

Journals are a kind of time capsule for world events and your own life. Of rereading and photographing her collection of more than 30 years, Ms. Sittenfeld writes: “Paging through the diaries now. I’m startled to realize how far I’ve come and also how little I’ve changed.” If you were to look at your journals 20 or 30 years from now, what story do you think they would tell? What do you think you could learn about yourself?

At the end of Ms. Sittenfeld’s essay, she wonders what is lost when journaling moves into a digital space and diaries are saved on the cloud: “Paging through an old diary is an emotional, time-travel experience. If a teenager today uses the Journal app, what will her experience be decades from now?” What do you think of digital journals? Can they ever capture the magic of analog ones? Would you ever consider using a digital journal?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

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• v.9(7); 2013 Jul

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

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

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it 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 [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

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 issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . 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 also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

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

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• 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 research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

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

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

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

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

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

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable 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, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

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

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material 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 minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test 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 way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be 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] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent 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 from. If your journal 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 choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

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

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way 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 too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable 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 advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: 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 work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will 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 exercise in competitive self-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 be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

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

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just 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 eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [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, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. 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 Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

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• 27 March 2024
• Update 27 March 2024

Journal editors are resigning en masse: what do these group exits achieve?

• Katharine Sanderson

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

It isn’t yet clear whether mass resignations among academic editors are set to become even more frequent. Credit: Sinuswelle/Alamy

Earlier this month, the editors at the linguistics journal Syntax publicly announced their resignations in response to changes to the manuscript-handling process imposed by its publisher, Wiley.

“We have come to the conclusion that our position as editors of the journal is no longer tenable,” wrote editors Klaus Abels and Suzanne Flynn in an open letter to authors and reviewers of the journal on 9 March . They added that measures designed to cut costs and tackle a backlog of papers — namely assigning copyediting tasks that were previously handled by Syntax ’s independent editorial office to a production team without specialist knowledge of linguistics — meant the journal could “no longer meet the needs of our community”.

Wiley says it will continue to publish and invest in Syntax . “Any changes Wiley has made to Syntax have been designed to facilitate the timely and high-quality publishing of the journal,” says Allyn Molina, vice-president of publishing development.

The move is latest such event in what seems to be an emerging form of protest: the mass resignation of academic editors.

Editors quit top neuroscience journal to protest against open-access charges

So far this year, the editors of five journals have resigned together, according to an unofficial tally by the website Retraction Watch. This followed 12 such moves in 2023, a big increase over the preceding years (there were 2 such events in both 2021 and 2022). The tally starts in 2015, although earlier events have been recorded.

It isn’t clear whether mass resignations are set to become even more frequent, says Michael Clarke, a publishing consultant at management-consultant firm Clarke & Esposito in Washington DC. But he adds that they are getting a lot of attention. Many mass resignations, Clarke says, are in response to changes to business models in the publishing industry.

This was the case for editors and editorial-board members of the journal Critical Public Health , published by Taylor & Francis, who resigned last July . The journal’s former co-editor-in-chief Judith Green, a sociologist at the University of Exeter, UK, says that the move was prompted partly by the publisher’s plans to make the journal open access. “It wasn’t that we were opposed to the principle of open access,” she says. Instead, the editors were deeply opposed to the article-processing-charge model, in which authors are charged fees to publish their papers open access. The team decided to resign only after a year of discussions with the publisher about alternative models failed to produce a compromise, Green says. A spokesperson for Taylor & Francis referred Nature to a statement issued at the time of the resignation, saying that the publisher was disappointed by the resignations, but was looking forward to recruiting a new editorial team.

“The big theme [of mass resignations] is this tension of competing priorities,” says Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch. “You have publishers — most of them are for profit — that demand and require constant growth because that's what the stock market requires. You have researchers — academics or editors, for the most part, who champion quality and maybe depth and time to review. Those are in opposition.”

More than a protest

Clarke says that he can see why editors who are dissatisfied might take matters into their own hands. “If an academic community wishes to control the business decisions of a journal, the best way to do that is to own the journal,” he says. “These mass resignations were all cases where the editors were working on journals owned by the publisher.”

“The resignation is not so much the point. The point is creating an alternative top-quality channel of scholarly communication,” says Abels, a linguistics researcher at University College London.

Open-access row prompts editorial board of Elsevier journal to resign

Groups of editors who resign sometimes go on to found new publications, over which they have more control. The former editors of Critical Public Health are in the process of setting up a new journal called The Journal of Critical Public Health , hosted by the international Critical Public Health Network in Edinburgh, UK. A similar outcome resulted from the mass resignation of editors at Elsevier journal NeuroImage last April , who have since set up another journal hosted by the non-profit publisher MIT press.

Stephen Smith, a biomedical engineer at the University of Oxford, UK, was editor-in-chief of NeuroImage , and now holds the same role at the new journal, Imaging Neuroscience , which launched in last July. He is pleased with what came out of the mass resignation. “Things are going extremely well,” he says. “As of March 2024, we have received 700 submissions and published 125 papers.”

Abels and his colleagues plan to form a new journal, under a diamond open-access model in which there are no fees for authors or readers, hosted by the Open Library of Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. He says that the editors were galvanized to resign by earlier resignations, but adds that those tempted to resign should look beyond using the move as a protest. They should focus instead on finding a home for a new journal and the academic community. Smith agrees: “I think of our move as being more than just ‘protest’, which implies that we academics lack the power to change the publication system directly.” Such change can be achieved, Smith says, by “starting new journals that are open, not-for-profit, and have high academic standards”.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00887-y

Updates & Corrections

Update 27 March 2024 : This article has been updated to include comments from Wiley, which publishes Syntax .

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