Writing a Review Article in Med School

[FiveOClock]

---

Members don't see this ad.

So I have a summer research gig, but my PI has also given me the opportunity to work at my own pace on writing a review. The review will be on a type of cancer I know nothing about and an tissue I have not studied in organ systems yet. In general, what would be the best way to go about writing this review? I have a very recent review (2015) on the topic; I'm wondering if it is appropriate to use this as a template, use some of the same sources, and simply add new information that has become available?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[PatsyStone]

So I have a summer research gig, but my PI has also given me the opportunity to work at my own pace on writing a review. The review will be on a type of cancer I know nothing about and an tissue I have not studied in organ systems yet. In general, what would be the best way to go about writing this review? I have a very recent review (2015) on the topic; I'm wondering if it is appropriate to use this as a template, use some of the same sources, and simply add new information that has become available?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Just start reading. Start with other review papers, and you'll slowly amass a working knowledge. Be sure to save the papers you are raeading (EndNote, Zotero, etc), so that you can stay organized. Also, start writing as soon as you can. People often wait until they've read a lot before they write, but getting your ideas on paper (or in Word) will help you organize your thoughts.

In general, whenever I have to tackle a topic I do not know a lot about, I always start with AAFP reviews; these papers, while pared-down, are solid gold.

 

[Tired]

So I have a summer research gig, but my PI has also given me the opportunity to work at my own pace on writing a review. The review will be on a type of cancer I know nothing about and an tissue I have not studied in organ systems yet. In general, what would be the best way to go about writing this review? I have a very recent review (2015) on the topic; I'm wondering if it is appropriate to use this as a template, use some of the same sources, and simply add new information that has become available?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

This is what I do, regardless of how much I know about the topic. I'm guessing by what you wrote that your mentor did not provide you an outline, which is unfortunate.

(1) Clarify if you are writing a "review" or a "systematic review." They are different. Everything after this will apply to a "review." If you are doing a systematic review, it's a whole different process.

(2) Figure out the journal that your review is being submitted to. Go to that journal, and pull out a couple of reviews on different subjects. Use these to template the format. Then download the "Author Instructions" for that journal, which will give you guidelines on word counts, number of tables/figures, number and format of references.

(3) Go to PubMed or Embase, and find several review articles that cover the same subject you are writing about. Nearly every topic already has a review article written on it. Read the articles, which will start to give you some idea of the the important things to discuss in your paper.

(4) Go to PubMed or Embase, and search for articles on the topic. Limit it to the last 10 years or so, since review articles are most valuable when they update people with current information. I generally try to find somewhere between 10-20 articles about the subject.

(5) After you read all that, you should start to have the shape of the paper taking form in your head. It will probably follow a pattern you would expect (Introduction, description, etiology, pathophysiology, treatment, prognosis). Write down your outline, and make notes under each heading of the main topics you want to discuss, and areas that you need to investigate further.

(6) Go back to PubMed or Embase, and start pulling references that specifically relate to each heading, or any questions that you jotted down. For example, for prognosis, you'll probably want some papers that discuss clinical trials and the mortality with various treatment protocols. That kind of thing. Remember that you need references for pretty much every factual statement that you make. Most of my reviews have had between 50-100 references total.

(7) Start writing.

Good luck!

 

[Tired]

One other thing: absolutely do not template your article off the recent review you have. That's a terrible idea, and you will potentially run into inadvertent plagarism issues.

If your mentor doesn't know about the recent review on the same topic, make sure you discuss it with him/her. If he/she does know about it, they may still want your review written because they want to emphasize different things, or they found some deficiency with it that they want to address.

It may also be that your review was "invited" (the journal contacted your mentor and asked him/her to write it), in which case great, because it's almost guaranteed to be published. However, if you're submitting it uninvited to a journal, a very recent review published on the same topic in another journal may make acceptance more difficult.

 

[IslandStyle808]

What I say will be a little out of context, since the review article I published was for a basic science journal,but I think what helped me will work in your situation. I pretty much did the majority of what PatsyStone suggested. Reading review articles are the best way to go to get the general information down (I had zero clue about the topic I wrote about when I first started). It will also prevent you from repeating knowledge too much also (you want information to be as recent as possible). After reading some of the papers, start writing as PatsyStone suggested. Make sure to start out with an outline so you have an organization of what you want to write also. At some point be familiar with citation programs such as EndNote or Bookends (you will have a ton of citations). Try to make sure your citations are linked to primary sources (the actual) rather than secondary (review articles). There are few instances where review articles can interpret information wrong, plus citations make researchers drool (they treat it like an index if they want to find primary studies).

To answer the second question, the more different your organization and citations the better (using some of their citation is okay, but make sure you really read them). There might be that one reviewer who will think it should not be published if the information is too similar (not only plagiarism, I'm talking about the use of old sources and organized in a very similar fashion). So I would suggest trying to come up with your own organization of the review article and show it to your PI/attending. Then look at the most recent articles as possible.

 

[FiveOClock]

Wow thanks for the replies! These are great, you guys are great. So should using the same sources as the current review uses to cite very basic information be avoided? As in, should I try to find the same information in different places to lay the groundwork?

For example, the basic pathophysiology is known. So should I recite the primary publications describe inflammation pathways etc because those are very old (30+ years).

 

[PatsyStone]

Wow thanks for the replies! These are great, you guys are great. So should using the same sources as the current review uses to cite very basic information be avoided? As in, should I try to find the same information in different places to lay the groundwork?

For example, the basic pathophysiology is known. So should I recite the primary publications describe inflammation pathways etc because those are very old (30+ years).

I'd follow @Tired 's advice and get an idea of which journal you will be submitting to. Different journals not only have formatting differences, but the word length and reference count may vary considerably. Additionally, depending on the scope of the journal, you can decide how basic or not you want your introduction to be.

Another thing to be cognizant of is if you will need clinical or histology images, start asking your PI if he/she has any, and if not, start tracking down someone who does. This can take a long time, especially if you need something rare or obscure