Medical knowledge is growing by leaps and bounds, which makes it hard for any practitioner to keep up with all the new literature.  Writing and reading review articles helps to keep individuals up-to-date. While some journals focus on review articles exclusively, many will print one or two review articles per edition.  Many journals have invited reviews, which requires that ideas for review articles be submitted prior to the writing of a review article, and will not accept already written articles.  Check the journal you would like to publish in before starting a review article.

Organizing Your Review and Writing

Writing an Abstract and Title

Authorship Guidelines

Literature Searching

A review article is a comprehensive, critical analysis of published (and unpublished) material on a topic. (Agarwal 2016) Review articles require a thorough analysis of the literature, extensive reading on the topic of choice, and organization of materials into a cohesive article.

In this section, narrative reviews will be discussed. Narrative reviews tend to be broader in scope, are written to be easily read and understood by both practicing clinicians and students, and use a less rigorous methodology in compilation of information. 

• Many journals publish invited reviews, which means an idea should be submitted to journals and be accepted before writing the review.  It is often helpful to work with a senior colleague whose name may be well-recognized in the field. 
• Start with a review of the literature, which can be done by a trained librarian or individually.  Literature reviews for the health sciences should all include the use of MEDLINE/PubMed.  Additional databases may be helpful as well.  Pull all applicable guidelines, systematic reviews, and clinical trials.
• Review and summarize the literature to understand what information is accessible on a given topic. Next, begin working on an outline for a review article, which will contain an introduction and a conclusion.  Depending on the journal or type of review, the outline may also require an internal structure.  Check the journal specifications for where you will be submitting. 
  • Introduction - engage your audience, why should they read your review?
  • Conclusion - Summarize briefly and generally. What should the reader take away? What are implications for practice?
  • Example of internal structure: Background (including incidence and prevalence), screening, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis.
    • Disease background, epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis, management.
• Include flowcharts, graphics, and tables as appropriate.  To avoid copyright violations:
  • Use only your own work or that of medial illustrators you have contracted with. 
  • Obtain permission from the copyright holder to reuse a figure, this is most likely the journal, but may be individual authors or groups. 
• To avoid plagiarism:
  • ​Read the rewrite all information in your own words.
  • Duplicating or having similar language for known facts is not plagiarism, but copying unique wording could be.
  • When in doubt, place in quotations and credit.

• Editing: After completion of the majority of work on the article, set it aside for a few days, then come back to edit.  It will help to give you a fresh perspective.  Have another person edit the paper, in order to edit for mistakes you may miss or points which are not clear. All authors on a paper should be involved in editing and approve the final version for submission.

Writing an Abstract

Writing a great abstract is key to having a good final research product for presentation or publication.  As a summary of your research and findings, your abstract should be limited to 100-250 words.  Since it can be difficult to condense your research these few words, the tips below will help with this process. 

• Start with a formal outline, even if not required, this structure will help you organize your thoughts.
  • Introduction: objective or hypothesis
  • Methods:  what you did
  • Results: what you found
  • Conclusion:  why it's important
• Be careful of word usage here.  You need to be concise and precise.
• Have someone edit your abstract.
• Assure the abstract aligns with submission guidelines.
• See AMEE Guide no. 108: Writing Competitive Research Conference Abstracts.

Writing a Title

The title of your project is the first thing that people will see.  Creating a good title for your presentation/publication/poster will capture the attention of visitors.  The following tips will help you as you develop your title:

• Brainstorm lots of keywords to help find the best mix.
• Be informative.
• Place your methodology or trial type at the end of your title.
• Use action words that concisely portrays the message of your project.
• Be aware of the length of your title. Don't let it get too long.
• See more ideas here: Academic Medicine - AM Rounds - Strategies for Writing and Effective Title.

Review articles should have anywhere from 2-5 authors.  Students, residents and fellows should keep in mind that they will always need to have a practicing clinician as an author on their article.

Authorship can be one of the trickiest parts of writing an article and should be dealt with up front.  The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has set guidelines for what authors are expected to contribute and what qualifies someone as an author.  These are the suggested guidelines to follow for the majority of clinical journals. The criteria for authorship are as follows:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Anyone not meeting all four criteria should be listed in the acknowledgements section of your paper.

Along with meeting author criteria, authors must decide amongst themselves who will be credited with the first author slot and the order of authors.  Traditionally the lead or corresponding author, who will handle organization, final edits, and submission, or the one who does the most writing will be the first author.  Mentors, senior faculty, and project PI's are generally placed as the last author.