Writing a review article

1. Writing a review article

2. Purpose The purpose of this online lesson is to describe some of the fundamental features of a certain type of paper, the review article.

3. Materials The following materials are needed for this lesson: • This powerpoint presentation (used as the guide). • The group project assignment sheet (available on blackboard). • Stoloff and Rogers, 2002 (available on blackboard). • Kiecolt-Glaser & Glaser, 2001 (available on blackboard; referred to as the “sample article.” • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fifth Edition. • Peer grading form (available on blackboard).

4. The APA Manual describes review articles as follows (APA Manual, p. 7) “Review articles, including meta-analyses are critical evaluations of material that has already been published. By organizing, integrating, and evaluating previously published material, the author of a review article considers the progress of current research toward clarifying a problem. In a sense a review article is tutorial in that the author: • Defines and clarifies the problem; • Summarizes previous investigations in order to inform the reader of the state of current research; • Identifies relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the literature; and • Suggests the next step or steps in solving the problem.”

5. Context • Students in biopsychology have selected groups that are to study various neuroscience issues. Each group member must now write a review article that describes one side of a the groups’ general theme. • Writing a review article is one part of a semester-long assignment that is described in the Group Project assignment sheet. • This project has been described in an article titled Understanding Psychology through Thinking, Doing, Writing (Stoloff & Rogers, 2001). The article was published in the national journal of the American Psychological Society. Please read this article to better understand what you are supposed to be learning from this assignment.

6. A sample review article • I suggest that you printout the Kiecolt-Glaser & Glaser, 2001 review article on Stress and Immunity. Read the article and then use it to follow along with this discussion regarding how to write a review article. This sample has the fundamental elements of a review article that you should try to emulate. • Note the following differences between the sample and your paper: • Your review article will be substantially shorter. Your paper must be limited to just 2 double spaced pages and you are expected to include just 8 references. • Your review article will be prepared in APA manuscript format. This paper is written in APA style, but it is formatted for printing in the journal. • Your review article should not include an abstract or keyword list, acknowledgements or notes that appear in the sample article.

7. How should I organize my review article? • Consider the sample article as a whole to see it’s organization. • The first paragraph (that starts “A well-functioning immune system . . .”) gives an overview of the questions being discussed in the article, in the words of the authors. This paragraph has no citations. • The bulk of the paper in the middle is organized into subsections labeled with subtitles. Information is presented is thematically organized. There are many citations in this middle section. • The paper ends with a few paragraphs that draw conclusions, again the words of the authors. Note that the final two paragraphs contain few citations (except the author’s own previous work). • Emulate this style.

8. Organize! Your paper must have a theme. • As you organize the literature you have collected and prepare to write your review article, determine what key ideas emerge from your review of the literature. Use these key ideas to organize and integrate your paper. • Keep your goal in mind. Remember the APA Manual says that a review article will “organize, integrate and evaluate previously published material.” You organize around your theme. • Use your • First paragraph to introduce your theme. • Middle sections to present and evaluate information, frequently referring back to your theme. • Final paragraph (or paragraphs) to draw conclusions that relate directly to your theme.

9. Be concise • I will evaluate only 2 double spaced pages for this assignment. You need your whole review article to fit into that tiny space. • Yes, this is hard! It is one of the most difficult aspects of this assignments. Your writing will be much improved if it is edited to make it concise. • To be concise: • Be well organized. • Avoid redundancy. Say most things just once. Don’t say things over and again. It’s a waste of time when you say things over and over again. It makes people mad when they are wasting their time reading the same things over and over again, in sentence after sentence. Endless repetition of the same ideas! (See what I mean?) • Make every word count. Omit any words that do not importantly contribute to the ideas you are trying to express. • Stick to the theme. Don’t talk about anything in the articles you are reviewing that are not relevant to your theme. • Integrate the information.

10. Integrate! • As you present relevant points from the literature, you will often find that the same issue is addressed, or the same point can be made, from two or more of the articles you have reviewed. Describe the information derived from these articles just once, and reference both (all) of the articles in a single citation. • For example, see the second page of the sample article: • Note that two articles are cited with this single statement. See the APA manual for more information about reference citations.

11. Don’t just report past findings, tell us what you think these findings mean. How do they contribute to our understanding of the general issues that are the theme of your paper. For example, on the first page of the sample, a finding is reported and then the authors explain the importance of the information to the issue of age and immune function, the theme of this paper: Evaluate!

12. Use APA-Style when citing literature and preparing your reference list. • Use the APA Publication Manual, 5th edition as a guide. • Note that the reference list was accidentally omitted when the sample paper was scanned. You need to include this in your paper.

13. Evaluation of this assignment • This paper is evaluated twice, first by peer review, and then, after you have the opportunity to improve your paper, by instructor review. Two grades are generated and both count. • A rubric has been developed for peer evaluation. It’s available on blackboard. I suggest that you review the rubric as you write your paper. Try to do the best job possible knowing that other students will evaluating your paper according to the guidelines specified in the rubric.

14. Good Luck!