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Mastering the art of crafting a review essay – a comprehensive guide for writers.

Writing a review essay can be a challenging task, but with the right approach and structure, you can create a comprehensive and insightful piece of writing that engages your readers. Whether you are reviewing a book, a movie, a restaurant, or any other type of work, a well-written review essay can provide valuable insights and opinions that help your audience make informed decisions.

As you begin the process of writing a review essay, it is important to first understand the purpose of the review and the expectations of your audience. A review essay is not just a summary of the work you are reviewing; it is an analysis and evaluation that considers the strengths and weaknesses of the work, as well as its overall impact and significance.

In order to write a comprehensive review essay, you should start by introducing the work you are reviewing and providing some context for your review. This could include information about the author, director, or creator of the work, as well as the genre or category to which the work belongs. This introduction should also include your thesis statement, which outlines the main point or argument of your review.

Key Elements of a Review Essay

A review essay includes several key elements that are essential for creating a comprehensive and effective review. These elements help the reader gain a clear understanding of the subject matter and provide valuable insights and analysis. Here are some key elements to consider when writing a review essay:

Tips for Choosing a Topic

When selecting a topic for your review essay, consider the following tips:

By following these tips, you can choose a topic that will allow you to write a comprehensive and engaging review essay.

Research Strategies for a Review Essay

When writing a comprehensive review essay, it is crucial to employ effective research strategies to gather relevant information and support your arguments. Here are some key research strategies to consider:

1. Conduct a thorough literature review: Start by exploring existing literature on the topic you are reviewing. Look for scholarly articles, books, and other sources that provide valuable insights and information.

2. Use a variety of sources: It is essential to gather information from diverse sources to ensure a well-rounded review. Consider using academic journals, reputable websites, and other reliable sources.

3. Take notes and organize information: Keep track of important points, quotes, and data as you conduct your research. Organize your notes in a systematic way to facilitate the writing process.

4. Analyze and synthesize the information: Once you have gathered sufficient information, analyze and synthesize the key findings to identify trends, patterns, and varying perspectives on the topic.

5. Evaluate the credibility of sources: Be critical of the sources you use in your review essay. Consider the author’s credentials, publication date, and methodology to determine the credibility of the information.

By following these research strategies, you can produce a comprehensive review essay that is well-informed and impactful.

Structuring Your Review Essay

When structuring your review essay, it is important to organize your thoughts and arguments in a clear and logical manner. Here are some key steps to help you create a well-structured review:

1. Introduction:

Start your review essay with an engaging introduction that provides an overview of the topic and sets the stage for the rest of the review. Clearly state your thesis or main argument in this section.

2. Summary of the Work:

Provide a brief summary of the work you are reviewing, including key points, arguments, and themes. This will give your readers a clear understanding of the work before you delve into your analysis.

3. Critical Analysis:

In this section, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the work. Discuss any key themes, arguments, or ideas presented by the author and provide evidence to support your analysis.

4. Comparison and Contrast:

Consider how the work you are reviewing compares and contrasts with other works in the field. Discuss similarities and differences and highlight any unique contributions made by the author.

5. Conclusion:

Conclude your review essay by summarizing your main points and reiterating your thesis. Reflect on the significance of the work and its implications for the field.

By following these steps, you can create a well-structured review essay that is engaging and insightful for your readers.

Writing a Strong Thesis Statement

A thesis statement is the central idea of your review essay, providing a concise summary of the main point you will be making. It should be specific, clear, and arguable to engage your readers and guide your writing process. A strong thesis statement sets the tone for the entire essay and informs readers about the focus and perspective of your review.

Analyzing and Evaluating Sources

When writing a comprehensive review essay, it is crucial to thoroughly analyze and evaluate the sources you use. This involves assessing the credibility, relevance, and reliability of each source to ensure that your essay is well-supported and based on sound evidence.

Credibility: Consider the author’s qualifications, the publication date, and the reputation of the source. Look for sources from reputable publishers, academic journals, or experts in the field.

Relevance: Evaluate how well each source contributes to your overall argument and thesis. Make sure the information provided is directly related to the topic you are discussing.

Reliability: Check for bias, misinformation, or inaccuracies in the sources you use. Cross-reference information from multiple sources to verify its accuracy and consistency.

By carefully analyzing and evaluating your sources, you can ensure that your review essay is well-researched and persuasive.

Developing a Coherent Argument

When writing a review essay, it is essential to develop a coherent argument that ties together the various aspects of your analysis. Your argument should be clear, logical, and supported by evidence from the text or material you are reviewing. To develop a coherent argument, consider the following strategies:

By following these steps and developing a coherent argument, you can write a comprehensive review essay that engages your readers and effectively communicates your insights and analysis.

Editing and Proofreading Techniques

Editing and proofreading are crucial steps in the writing process. After completing a comprehensive review essay, it is essential to carefully edit and proofread your work to ensure clarity, correctness, and coherence.

Here are some techniques to help you polish your review essay:

• Read Aloud: Reading your essay aloud can help you identify awkward phrasing, errors, or inconsistencies.
• Use Editing Tools: Utilize spelling and grammar checkers, as well as style guides, to enhance the quality of your writing.
• Take Breaks: Step away from your essay for a while before revisiting it to gain a fresh perspective and catch overlooked mistakes.
• Seek Feedback: Ask a peer or mentor to review your essay and provide constructive criticism.

By incorporating these editing and proofreading techniques , you can elevate the quality of your comprehensive review essay and ensure that your ideas are effectively communicated to your readers.

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Home ➔ How to Write an Essay ➔ Review Essay

Review Essay Guide

Review essays are fundamental to academic and professional fields, offering more than just summaries of existing literature. They provide critical analysis, synthesize various viewpoints, and evaluate the contributions of scholarly works to a particular field. In this introductory section, we’ll outline what review essays are, their purpose, and their importance:

• Definition : Review essays are analytical writings that go beyond summarizing existing research. They involve a comprehensive assessment of scholarly works, discussing their strengths, weaknesses, and contributions to a particular field of study.
• Purpose : In academic settings, review essays are crucial for fostering deep engagement with subject matter, developing critical thinking, and enhancing scholarly discourse. Professionally, they can influence policy decisions, guide research directions, and impact industry practices.

We aim to provide a thorough guide on crafting effective review essays. This includes understanding their key elements, exploring various approaches, and offering practical advice for writing, structuring, and refining your work.

This guide will serve as a comprehensive resource, whether you’re a student, researcher, or professional, offering insights into the art of writing impactful review essays.

Key Elements of a Review Essay

When crafting a review essay, understanding its key components is crucial. A well-structured review essay not only showcases the writer’s comprehension of the subject but also provides valuable insights into the field of study. Below are the essential elements that should be included in a review essay:

• The essay should demonstrate a deep understanding of the topic under review. This includes grasping the core issues, problems, or debates that the subject encompasses.
• A critical part of the review essay is briefly summarizing the main arguments and conclusions of the sources under review. This summary should capture the essence of the authors’ viewpoints and findings.
• An effective review essay goes beyond summarizing by critically analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the reviewed material. This analysis evaluates the arguments’ validity, the evidence’s sufficiency, and the conclusions’ soundness.
• The essay should also discuss how the reviewed works contribute to the broader field of study. This involves analyzing the significance of the research, its impact on existing knowledge, and potential implications for future research.

To further clarify these elements, the following table provides a breakdown of each component and its significance:

By incorporating these elements, a review essay provides a comprehensive, analytical, and insightful look into the subject matter, offering both a summary and a critical evaluation of the existing literature.

Approaches to Writing a Review Essay

Selecting the right approach is pivotal when writing a review essay. The approach you choose should align with your essay’s objective and the nature of the subject matter. Here are some of the common approaches to writing a review essay and guidelines on how to choose the most suitable one:

• State of the Art Review : This approach focuses on the most current research in a given area. It’s ideal when your objective is to offer new perspectives or highlight areas needing further research in rapidly evolving fields.
• Historical Review : A historical review explores the development of a particular field of study over time. This approach suits essays aiming to provide context, trace the evolution of thought, or understand the historical progression of a subject.
• Comparison of Perspectives Review : This method contrasts different viewpoints on a topic. It’s particularly effective when there’s a debate or various perspectives on the subject matter. It helps in illustrating contrasting research and introducing new viewpoints by comparison.
• Synthesis of Two Fields Review : Useful when different fields intersect on a common problem or topic, this approach brings together literature from multiple disciplines, providing a comprehensive view and uncovering insights that might not be apparent within a single field.
• Theoretical Model Building Review : Involves examining literature to develop new theoretical assumptions or models. This is apt for essays that propose new theories or conceptual frameworks based on existing research.

Choosing the Right Approach

The choice of approach largely depends on your essay’s objective and the subject matter’s nature. Consider the following when deciding:

• Purpose of the Essay : Are you aiming to provide a comprehensive overview, challenge existing theories, introduce new perspectives, or trace historical developments? Your purpose will guide the choice of approach.
• Nature of the Subject Matter : Some subjects might be better suited to particular approaches. For instance, rapidly advancing scientific fields might benefit more from a state of the art review.
• Available Literature : The amount and type of literature available on your topic can also influence your approach. A rich historical body of work lends itself to a historical review, while a topic with diverse viewpoints might be better suited for comparing perspectives.
• Your Expertise and Interest : Your academic background and interests can also guide your choice. An area you are more familiar with might lend itself to a more complex approach, like theoretical model building.

By thoughtfully selecting the appropriate approach, your review essay can effectively achieve its objectives and make a meaningful contribution to understanding the topic.

Preparation for Writing

Adequate preparation is crucial for writing a well-organized review essay. This involves thorough reading of the primary sources and engaging critically with the material. Here are key steps and strategies for preparing to write a review essay:

• Reading and Understanding Primary Sources : Begin with a comprehensive reading of your primary sources. This includes not just the main content but also supplementary sections like prefaces, introductions, and conclusions, which often provide valuable insights into the author’s intentions and the scope of the work.
• Engaging in Critical Thinking : As you read, engage in critical thinking. Ask yourself questions about the author’s arguments, the evidence presented, and the overall coherence of the work. This critical engagement will help in forming a deeper understanding of the material.
• Formulating Questions During Reading : Develop questions as you read through the material. These questions can range from inquiries about the author’s perspective to the implications of their arguments. This practice helps identify gaps, contradictions, or areas that need further exploration.
• Read Prefaces and Introductions : These sections often set the tone of the work and provide a roadmap of the content.
• Review Each Chapter : After reading each chapter, take a moment to summarize the major points in your own words.
• Engage with the Author’s Ideas : Imagine having a conversation with the author. This can help in critically analyzing the text and formulating your own viewpoints.

The following table provides a summary of these strategies:

By following these steps, you will be well-prepared to write a review essay that is insightful, well-informed, and critically engaging.

Structuring the Review Essay

The structure of a review essay is fundamental to its effectiveness and clarity. A well-structured essay not only guides the reader through your arguments but also enhances the impact of your analysis. To achieve this, a review essay should be clear, concise, focused, and analytical.

• Clear and Concise Communication : The hallmark of a good review essay is its clarity. Complex ideas should be conveyed in an understandable manner, making the essay accessible to a broad audience. Avoid unnecessary jargon or overly complex sentences. Conciseness is equally important. Your essay should be direct and to the point, providing enough detail to support your arguments without becoming verbose.
• Defining Terms and Providing Evidence : A crucial step in structuring your essay is defining key terms central to your argument. This clarifies your position and ensures your reader is not lost in specialized terminology. Equally important is backing up your claims with appropriate examples and evidence . This could range from quotations and data to specific instances or case studies that illustrate your points.
• Maintaining an Informative and Focused Approach : Your essay should have a clear and narrow focus. This focus allows you to delve deeply into your topic and provide detailed insights. Every part of the essay should serve the purpose of reinforcing your main argument or thesis. This focused approach ensures that your essay remains informative and relevant to your topic.
• Beyond Summarization – Analysis, Synthesis, and Interpretation : A review essay should not merely summarize the existing literature. Instead, it should add to the conversation through analysis, synthesis , and interpretation. Analyze the material to identify patterns, contradictions, or gaps. Synthesize different viewpoints to create a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Interpret the findings in a way that provides new insights or perspectives, thereby contributing to the academic discussion on the subject.

Structuring your review essay with clarity, conciseness, focus, and analytical depth is essential. This approach makes your essay more engaging and informative and demonstrates your ability to critically engage with and contribute to the academic discourse.

Academic Rigor and Documentation

A key aspect of writing a review essay is maintaining academic rigor and ensuring proper documentation. This not only reinforces the credibility of your essay but also upholds the ethical standards of academic writing.

• Utilizing Academic Sources : The backbone of a review essay is the sources it draws upon. Prioritize using academic sources, including peer-reviewed journals, scholarly books, and authoritative research articles. These sources provide reliable, vetted information that forms a strong foundation for your arguments and analyses. Using academic sources enhances your essay’s validity and shows your engagement with the scholarly community.
• The Imperative of Proper Documentation : Accurate and consistent documentation is crucial in a review essay. It serves a dual purpose – preventing plagiarism and directing readers to the original sources. Whether you are paraphrasing or quoting directly , each instance of sourced information must be properly cited according to the appropriate academic style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). This practice is not just about avoiding plagiarism; it is about contributing to an ongoing scholarly conversation by acknowledging the work of others.
• Quoting with Precision and Purpose : When it comes to quoting sources, less is often more. Over-reliance on direct quotations can overshadow your own voice and analytical insights. Use quotes sparingly and ensure they are directly relevant to your argument. When you do quote, integrate the quotation seamlessly into your essay, maintaining the flow and coherence of your writing. Paraphrasing is another effective way to reference ideas from your sources while maintaining your unique voice and perspective. Remember that proper citation is non-negotiable regardless of whether you quote directly or paraphrase.

Incorporating these practices in your review essay not only upholds academic integrity but also strengthens your arguments, ensuring that your essay is both credible and ethically sound.

Writing the Review

Writing a review essay involves a series of actionable steps to ensure clarity, depth, and coherence in your work. Here’s a detailed guide to help you navigate through the process:

Step 1: Define Your Thesis or Research Question

Begin by clearly stating the thesis or main research question of your essay. This statement should be concise and articulate the central theme or argument you intend to explore. It will guide your writing process, ensuring that all your analysis and critical discussion are relevant and focused.

Step 2: Organize Your Research

Gather and organize your research materials. Create an outline based on the themes, methodologies, or chronological order of the sources. This outline will help structure your essay and ensure you cover all the necessary points in a logical sequence.

Step 3: Critical Reading and Note-Taking

As you read through your sources, engage in critical thinking. Take notes on key arguments, methodologies, findings, and how these relate to your thesis. Look for patterns, contradictions, and gaps in the literature. This step is crucial for understanding the broader context of your topic and for forming your own perspective.

Step 4: Develop Your Argument

Using your outline and notes, start developing your argument. Ensure each paragraph or section clearly addresses a part of your thesis. Use evidence from your sources to support your points, and explain how this evidence relates to your overall argument.

Step 5: Address Controversies and Debates

Identify and discuss any controversies or major debates present in the literature. Present these objectively, showing how they relate to your thesis. Use these discussions to demonstrate research gaps or pose new questions that could be explored in further studies.

Step 6: Synthesize and Analyze

Go beyond summarizing your sources. Synthesize the information to draw new insights and critically analyze the texts to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Your analysis should add to the existing literature by providing a unique perspective or interpretation.

Step 7: Write the Introduction and Conclusion

Craft your introduction to set the context for your essay and present your thesis. Your conclusion should summarize the key points of your analysis and reiterate how they support your thesis. It should also suggest implications, future research directions, or final thoughts on the subject.

Step 8: Review and Refine

Review your essay for clarity and coherence. Check if each section transitions smoothly and contributes to your overall argument. Look for areas that need more development or clarification. Proofread to correct grammatical errors and ensure consistency in style and formatting.

Step 9: Proper Documentation

Throughout your essay, ensure that all sources are properly cited. This includes both in-text citations and a comprehensive bibliography. Proper documentation is crucial to establish credibility and to allow readers to follow up on your sources.

Step 10: Seek Feedback

Before finalizing your essay, consider getting feedback from peers, mentors, or advisors. They can provide valuable insights, point out areas that need improvement, and help refine your argument.

By following these steps, you can systematically approach writing your review essay, ensuring that it is well-researched, coherent, and critically engaging. Each step is designed to build upon the last, culminating in a comprehensive and insightful piece of academic writing.

In this guide, we have explored the essential steps and strategies for writing a successful review essay. To recap, here are the key points to remember:

• Define Your Thesis : Clearly state the central argument or research question of your essay.
• Organize and Analyze Your Research : Gather your sources, create an organized outline, and engage in critical reading and analysis.
• Develop a Coherent Argument : Build your essay around your thesis, using evidence from your research to support your points.
• Address Controversies and Debates : Objectively discuss any debates or controversies in the literature, using them to enrich your analysis.
• Synthesize Information : Go beyond summarizing sources to draw new insights and perspectives.
• Write Clearly and Concisely : Ensure that your essay is well-structured, with clear transitions and a logical flow of ideas.
• Review and Refine : Revise your essay for clarity, coherence, and grammatical accuracy.
• Proper Documentation : Cite your sources correctly to avoid plagiarism and provide references for further reading.
• Seek Feedback : Get input from peers or mentors to refine your argument and writing.

The table below provides a quick reference to these key steps:

We encourage you to apply these guidelines in your own review essay writing. These steps, when followed diligently, can help you craft an insightful and impactful essay.

Further Resources

To deepen your understanding of writing review essays, consider exploring the following resources:

• Books on Academic Writing : Look for books that specifically focus on academic writing skills, including essay structure, argument development, and effective communication.
• Online Writing Workshops : Many universities offer online workshops or webinars on academic writing, which can provide practical tips and interactive guidance.
• Writing Centers : Utilize the resources available at your institution’s writing center. They often offer one-on-one consultations, workshops, and writing guides.
• Scholarly Journals : Read review essays published in academic journals to get a sense of different writing styles and approaches.
• Style Guides : Familiarize yourself with style guides like APA, MLA, or Chicago, which provide detailed instructions on citation and formatting.
• Research Methodology Books : These can help you understand how to analyze and synthesize research effectively.
• Peer-Review Platforms : Engage with platforms where you can submit your work for peer review or review others’ essays to gain different perspectives.

These resources can provide additional guidance and support as you refine your skills in writing review essays. Remember, writing is a skill that improves with practice, so continue to seek out opportunities to learn and grow as a writer.

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How to Write Critical Reviews

When you are asked to write a critical review of a book or article, you will need to identify, summarize, and evaluate the ideas and information the author has presented. In other words, you will be examining another person’s thoughts on a topic from your point of view.

Your stand must go beyond your “gut reaction” to the work and be based on your knowledge (readings, lecture, experience) of the topic as well as on factors such as criteria stated in your assignment or discussed by you and your instructor.

Make your stand clear at the beginning of your review, in your evaluations of specific parts, and in your concluding commentary.

Remember that your goal should be to make a few key points about the book or article, not to discuss everything the author writes.

Understanding the Assignment

To write a good critical review, you will have to engage in the mental processes of analyzing (taking apart) the work–deciding what its major components are and determining how these parts (i.e., paragraphs, sections, or chapters) contribute to the work as a whole.

Analyzing the work will help you focus on how and why the author makes certain points and prevent you from merely summarizing what the author says. Assuming the role of an analytical reader will also help you to determine whether or not the author fulfills the stated purpose of the book or article and enhances your understanding or knowledge of a particular topic.

Be sure to read your assignment thoroughly before you read the article or book. Your instructor may have included specific guidelines for you to follow. Keeping these guidelines in mind as you read the article or book can really help you write your paper!

Also, note where the work connects with what you’ve studied in the course. You can make the most efficient use of your reading and notetaking time if you are an active reader; that is, keep relevant questions in mind and jot down page numbers as well as your responses to ideas that appear to be significant as you read.

Please note: The length of your introduction and overview, the number of points you choose to review, and the length of your conclusion should be proportionate to the page limit stated in your assignment and should reflect the complexity of the material being reviewed as well as the expectations of your reader.

Write the introduction

Below are a few guidelines to help you write the introduction to your critical review.

Introduce your review appropriately

Begin your review with an introduction appropriate to your assignment.

If your assignment asks you to review only one book and not to use outside sources, your introduction will focus on identifying the author, the title, the main topic or issue presented in the book, and the author’s purpose in writing the book.

If your assignment asks you to review the book as it relates to issues or themes discussed in the course, or to review two or more books on the same topic, your introduction must also encompass those expectations.

Explain relationships

For example, before you can review two books on a topic, you must explain to your reader in your introduction how they are related to one another.

Within this shared context (or under this “umbrella”) you can then review comparable aspects of both books, pointing out where the authors agree and differ.

In other words, the more complicated your assignment is, the more your introduction must accomplish.

Finally, the introduction to a book review is always the place for you to establish your position as the reviewer (your thesis about the author’s thesis).

As you write, consider the following questions:

• Is the book a memoir, a treatise, a collection of facts, an extended argument, etc.? Is the article a documentary, a write-up of primary research, a position paper, etc.?
• Who is the author? What does the preface or foreword tell you about the author’s purpose, background, and credentials? What is the author’s approach to the topic (as a journalist? a historian? a researcher?)?
• What is the main topic or problem addressed? How does the work relate to a discipline, to a profession, to a particular audience, or to other works on the topic?
• What is your critical evaluation of the work (your thesis)? Why have you taken that position? What criteria are you basing your position on?

Provide an overview

In your introduction, you will also want to provide an overview. An overview supplies your reader with certain general information not appropriate for including in the introduction but necessary to understanding the body of the review.

Generally, an overview describes your book’s division into chapters, sections, or points of discussion. An overview may also include background information about the topic, about your stand, or about the criteria you will use for evaluation.

The overview and the introduction work together to provide a comprehensive beginning for (a “springboard” into) your review.

• What are the author’s basic premises? What issues are raised, or what themes emerge? What situation (i.e., racism on college campuses) provides a basis for the author’s assertions?
• How informed is my reader? What background information is relevant to the entire book and should be placed here rather than in a body paragraph?

Write the body

The body is the center of your paper, where you draw out your main arguments. Below are some guidelines to help you write it.

Organize using a logical plan

Organize the body of your review according to a logical plan. Here are two options:

• First, summarize, in a series of paragraphs, those major points from the book that you plan to discuss; incorporating each major point into a topic sentence for a paragraph is an effective organizational strategy. Second, discuss and evaluate these points in a following group of paragraphs. (There are two dangers lurking in this pattern–you may allot too many paragraphs to summary and too few to evaluation, or you may re-summarize too many points from the book in your evaluation section.)
• Alternatively, you can summarize and evaluate the major points you have chosen from the book in a point-by-point schema. That means you will discuss and evaluate point one within the same paragraph (or in several if the point is significant and warrants extended discussion) before you summarize and evaluate point two, point three, etc., moving in a logical sequence from point to point to point. Here again, it is effective to use the topic sentence of each paragraph to identify the point from the book that you plan to summarize or evaluate.

Questions to keep in mind as you write

With either organizational pattern, consider the following questions:

• What are the author’s most important points? How do these relate to one another? (Make relationships clear by using transitions: “In contrast,” an equally strong argument,” “moreover,” “a final conclusion,” etc.).
• What types of evidence or information does the author present to support his or her points? Is this evidence convincing, controversial, factual, one-sided, etc.? (Consider the use of primary historical material, case studies, narratives, recent scientific findings, statistics.)
• Where does the author do a good job of conveying factual material as well as personal perspective? Where does the author fail to do so? If solutions to a problem are offered, are they believable, misguided, or promising?
• Which parts of the work (particular arguments, descriptions, chapters, etc.) are most effective and which parts are least effective? Why?
• Where (if at all) does the author convey personal prejudice, support illogical relationships, or present evidence out of its appropriate context?

Keep your opinions distinct and cite your sources

Remember, as you discuss the author’s major points, be sure to distinguish consistently between the author’s opinions and your own.

Keep the summary portions of your discussion concise, remembering that your task as a reviewer is to re-see the author’s work, not to re-tell it.

And, importantly, if you refer to ideas from other books and articles or from lecture and course materials, always document your sources, or else you might wander into the realm of plagiarism.

Include only that material which has relevance for your review and use direct quotations sparingly. The Writing Center has other handouts to help you paraphrase text and introduce quotations.

Write the conclusion

You will want to use the conclusion to state your overall critical evaluation.

You have already discussed the major points the author makes, examined how the author supports arguments, and evaluated the quality or effectiveness of specific aspects of the book or article.

Now you must make an evaluation of the work as a whole, determining such things as whether or not the author achieves the stated or implied purpose and if the work makes a significant contribution to an existing body of knowledge.

Consider the following questions:

• Is the work appropriately subjective or objective according to the author’s purpose?
• How well does the work maintain its stated or implied focus? Does the author present extraneous material? Does the author exclude or ignore relevant information?
• How well has the author achieved the overall purpose of the book or article? What contribution does the work make to an existing body of knowledge or to a specific group of readers? Can you justify the use of this work in a particular course?
• What is the most important final comment you wish to make about the book or article? Do you have any suggestions for the direction of future research in the area? What has reading this work done for you or demonstrated to you?

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Book Reviews

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write a book review, a report or essay that offers a critical perspective on a text. It offers a process and suggests some strategies for writing book reviews.

What is a review?

A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. Reviews can consider books, articles, entire genres or fields of literature, architecture, art, fashion, restaurants, policies, exhibitions, performances, and many other forms. This handout will focus on book reviews. For a similar assignment, see our handout on literature reviews .

Above all, a review makes an argument. The most important element of a review is that it is a commentary, not merely a summary. It allows you to enter into dialogue and discussion with the work’s creator and with other audiences. You can offer agreement or disagreement and identify where you find the work exemplary or deficient in its knowledge, judgments, or organization. You should clearly state your opinion of the work in question, and that statement will probably resemble other types of academic writing, with a thesis statement, supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Typically, reviews are brief. In newspapers and academic journals, they rarely exceed 1000 words, although you may encounter lengthier assignments and extended commentaries. In either case, reviews need to be succinct. While they vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features:

• First, a review gives the reader a concise summary of the content. This includes a relevant description of the topic as well as its overall perspective, argument, or purpose.
• Second, and more importantly, a review offers a critical assessment of the content. This involves your reactions to the work under review: what strikes you as noteworthy, whether or not it was effective or persuasive, and how it enhanced your understanding of the issues at hand.
• Finally, in addition to analyzing the work, a review often suggests whether or not the audience would appreciate it.

Becoming an expert reviewer: three short examples

Reviewing can be a daunting task. Someone has asked for your opinion about something that you may feel unqualified to evaluate. Who are you to criticize Toni Morrison’s new book if you’ve never written a novel yourself, much less won a Nobel Prize? The point is that someone—a professor, a journal editor, peers in a study group—wants to know what you think about a particular work. You may not be (or feel like) an expert, but you need to pretend to be one for your particular audience. Nobody expects you to be the intellectual equal of the work’s creator, but your careful observations can provide you with the raw material to make reasoned judgments. Tactfully voicing agreement and disagreement, praise and criticism, is a valuable, challenging skill, and like many forms of writing, reviews require you to provide concrete evidence for your assertions.

Consider the following brief book review written for a history course on medieval Europe by a student who is fascinated with beer:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, investigates how women used to brew and sell the majority of ale drunk in England. Historically, ale and beer (not milk, wine, or water) were important elements of the English diet. Ale brewing was low-skill and low status labor that was complimentary to women’s domestic responsibilities. In the early fifteenth century, brewers began to make ale with hops, and they called this new drink “beer.” This technique allowed brewers to produce their beverages at a lower cost and to sell it more easily, although women generally stopped brewing once the business became more profitable.

The student describes the subject of the book and provides an accurate summary of its contents. But the reader does not learn some key information expected from a review: the author’s argument, the student’s appraisal of the book and its argument, and whether or not the student would recommend the book. As a critical assessment, a book review should focus on opinions, not facts and details. Summary should be kept to a minimum, and specific details should serve to illustrate arguments.

Now consider a review of the same book written by a slightly more opinionated student:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 was a colossal disappointment. I wanted to know about the rituals surrounding drinking in medieval England: the songs, the games, the parties. Bennett provided none of that information. I liked how the book showed ale and beer brewing as an economic activity, but the reader gets lost in the details of prices and wages. I was more interested in the private lives of the women brewsters. The book was divided into eight long chapters, and I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to read it.

There’s no shortage of judgments in this review! But the student does not display a working knowledge of the book’s argument. The reader has a sense of what the student expected of the book, but no sense of what the author herself set out to prove. Although the student gives several reasons for the negative review, those examples do not clearly relate to each other as part of an overall evaluation—in other words, in support of a specific thesis. This review is indeed an assessment, but not a critical one.

Here is one final review of the same book:

One of feminism’s paradoxes—one that challenges many of its optimistic histories—is how patriarchy remains persistent over time. While Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 recognizes medieval women as historical actors through their ale brewing, it also shows that female agency had its limits with the advent of beer. I had assumed that those limits were religious and political, but Bennett shows how a “patriarchal equilibrium” shut women out of economic life as well. Her analysis of women’s wages in ale and beer production proves that a change in women’s work does not equate to a change in working women’s status. Contemporary feminists and historians alike should read Bennett’s book and think twice when they crack open their next brewsky.

This student’s review avoids the problems of the previous two examples. It combines balanced opinion and concrete example, a critical assessment based on an explicitly stated rationale, and a recommendation to a potential audience. The reader gets a sense of what the book’s author intended to demonstrate. Moreover, the student refers to an argument about feminist history in general that places the book in a specific genre and that reaches out to a general audience. The example of analyzing wages illustrates an argument, the analysis engages significant intellectual debates, and the reasons for the overall positive review are plainly visible. The review offers criteria, opinions, and support with which the reader can agree or disagree.

Developing an assessment: before you write

There is no definitive method to writing a review, although some critical thinking about the work at hand is necessary before you actually begin writing. Thus, writing a review is a two-step process: developing an argument about the work under consideration, and making that argument as you write an organized and well-supported draft. See our handout on argument .

What follows is a series of questions to focus your thinking as you dig into the work at hand. While the questions specifically consider book reviews, you can easily transpose them to an analysis of performances, exhibitions, and other review subjects. Don’t feel obligated to address each of the questions; some will be more relevant than others to the book in question.

• What is the thesis—or main argument—of the book? If the author wanted you to get one idea from the book, what would it be? How does it compare or contrast to the world you know? What has the book accomplished?
• What exactly is the subject or topic of the book? Does the author cover the subject adequately? Does the author cover all aspects of the subject in a balanced fashion? What is the approach to the subject (topical, analytical, chronological, descriptive)?
• How does the author support their argument? What evidence do they use to prove their point? Do you find that evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does any of the author’s information (or conclusions) conflict with other books you’ve read, courses you’ve taken or just previous assumptions you had of the subject?
• How does the author structure their argument? What are the parts that make up the whole? Does the argument make sense? Does it persuade you? Why or why not?
• How has this book helped you understand the subject? Would you recommend the book to your reader?

Beyond the internal workings of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the circumstances of the text’s production:

• Who is the author? Nationality, political persuasion, training, intellectual interests, personal history, and historical context may provide crucial details about how a work takes shape. Does it matter, for example, that the biographer was the subject’s best friend? What difference would it make if the author participated in the events they write about?
• What is the book’s genre? Out of what field does it emerge? Does it conform to or depart from the conventions of its genre? These questions can provide a historical or literary standard on which to base your evaluations. If you are reviewing the first book ever written on the subject, it will be important for your readers to know. Keep in mind, though, that naming “firsts”—alongside naming “bests” and “onlys”—can be a risky business unless you’re absolutely certain.

Writing the review

Once you have made your observations and assessments of the work under review, carefully survey your notes and attempt to unify your impressions into a statement that will describe the purpose or thesis of your review. Check out our handout on thesis statements . Then, outline the arguments that support your thesis.

Your arguments should develop the thesis in a logical manner. That logic, unlike more standard academic writing, may initially emphasize the author’s argument while you develop your own in the course of the review. The relative emphasis depends on the nature of the review: if readers may be more interested in the work itself, you may want to make the work and the author more prominent; if you want the review to be about your perspective and opinions, then you may structure the review to privilege your observations over (but never separate from) those of the work under review. What follows is just one of many ways to organize a review.

Introduction

Since most reviews are brief, many writers begin with a catchy quip or anecdote that succinctly delivers their argument. But you can introduce your review differently depending on the argument and audience. The Writing Center’s handout on introductions can help you find an approach that works. In general, you should include:

• The name of the author and the book title and the main theme.
• Relevant details about who the author is and where they stand in the genre or field of inquiry. You could also link the title to the subject to show how the title explains the subject matter.
• The context of the book and/or your review. Placing your review in a framework that makes sense to your audience alerts readers to your “take” on the book. Perhaps you want to situate a book about the Cuban revolution in the context of Cold War rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union. Another reviewer might want to consider the book in the framework of Latin American social movements. Your choice of context informs your argument.
• The thesis of the book. If you are reviewing fiction, this may be difficult since novels, plays, and short stories rarely have explicit arguments. But identifying the book’s particular novelty, angle, or originality allows you to show what specific contribution the piece is trying to make.
• Your thesis about the book.

Summary of content

This should be brief, as analysis takes priority. In the course of making your assessment, you’ll hopefully be backing up your assertions with concrete evidence from the book, so some summary will be dispersed throughout other parts of the review.

The necessary amount of summary also depends on your audience. Graduate students, beware! If you are writing book reviews for colleagues—to prepare for comprehensive exams, for example—you may want to devote more attention to summarizing the book’s contents. If, on the other hand, your audience has already read the book—such as a class assignment on the same work—you may have more liberty to explore more subtle points and to emphasize your own argument. See our handout on summary for more tips.

Analysis and evaluation of the book

Your analysis and evaluation should be organized into paragraphs that deal with single aspects of your argument. This arrangement can be challenging when your purpose is to consider the book as a whole, but it can help you differentiate elements of your criticism and pair assertions with evidence more clearly. You do not necessarily need to work chronologically through the book as you discuss it. Given the argument you want to make, you can organize your paragraphs more usefully by themes, methods, or other elements of the book. If you find it useful to include comparisons to other books, keep them brief so that the book under review remains in the spotlight. Avoid excessive quotation and give a specific page reference in parentheses when you do quote. Remember that you can state many of the author’s points in your own words.

Sum up or restate your thesis or make the final judgment regarding the book. You should not introduce new evidence for your argument in the conclusion. You can, however, introduce new ideas that go beyond the book if they extend the logic of your own thesis. This paragraph needs to balance the book’s strengths and weaknesses in order to unify your evaluation. Did the body of your review have three negative paragraphs and one favorable one? What do they all add up to? The Writing Center’s handout on conclusions can help you make a final assessment.

Finally, a few general considerations:

• Review the book in front of you, not the book you wish the author had written. You can and should point out shortcomings or failures, but don’t criticize the book for not being something it was never intended to be.
• With any luck, the author of the book worked hard to find the right words to express her ideas. You should attempt to do the same. Precise language allows you to control the tone of your review.
• Never hesitate to challenge an assumption, approach, or argument. Be sure, however, to cite specific examples to back up your assertions carefully.
• Try to present a balanced argument about the value of the book for its audience. You’re entitled—and sometimes obligated—to voice strong agreement or disagreement. But keep in mind that a bad book takes as long to write as a good one, and every author deserves fair treatment. Harsh judgments are difficult to prove and can give readers the sense that you were unfair in your assessment.
• A great place to learn about book reviews is to look at examples. The New York Times Sunday Book Review and The New York Review of Books can show you how professional writers review books.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Drewry, John. 1974. Writing Book Reviews. Boston: Greenwood Press.

Hoge, James. 1987. Literary Reviewing. Charlottesville: University Virginia of Press.

Sova, Dawn, and Harry Teitelbaum. 2002. How to Write Book Reports , 4th ed. Lawrenceville, NY: Thomson/Arco.

Walford, A.J. 1986. Reviews and Reviewing: A Guide. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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FOR STUDENTS : ALL THE INGREDIENTS OF A GOOD ESSAY

Guide: How to write a review essay

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A review essay examines a piece of writing, a film or some other form of art, but it differs from a literary essay in a couple of key ways. A review essay is evaluative . That means that its purpose is to tell the reader whether the work is good or not and whether the work is recommended. Also, unlike a literary essay, a review essay is not written for someone who is already familiar with the work in question. The audience for a review essay is someone who is wondering whether to spend their time and money on the work reviewed. A review essay may contain more plot summary than a literary essay , but it shouldn’t give away any of the major revelations or the ending.

Read Sample Reviews

Reviews are common in journalism, and examples of reviews of everything from movies to video games to computer software and more can be found online. Reading a few reviews of films and books from major publications such as nationally known magazines or large city newspapers can be a good way to get a sense of what is expected in a review essay.

Characteristics of a Good Review Essay

A good review essay will place the work in some sort of context. For example, a good review about a movie that tells the story of traveling circus people would briefly mention other movies about traveling circus people and how this film compares with those others or how it fits into the overall picture of traveling circus people that film has presented over the years. In a literary essay, this might be the whole point of the paper, but in a review essay, it would only be a paragraph or two. The introduction or the paragraph just after the introduction is a good place for this context.

A review essay is somewhat subjective, but it still needs to have standards and examples to demonstrate its points. It needs to give some reasons that the work is good or bad and it needs to support those reasons. This will help the audience to decide whether to follow the reviewer’s advice.

Thesis Statement

A thesis statement for a review essay should make an evaluation of the film and explain why the writer has made that evaluation. Here’s an example:

“Sideshow on the Road” is a terrible movie about traveling circus people with poor acting, an implausible plot and a boring, talky script.

The body of the review would then expand on these reasons to convince the reader to avoid the film.

The review itself should use specific examples from the work to illustrate the reviewer’s point. For example, the reviewer has complained about the poor acting in the movie. To illustrate this, the reviewer might describe a scene in which a character learns a loved one has died and seems to have no reaction at all. The boring, talky script might be illustrated by explaining that the characters spend a full ten minutes arguing about whether they took a wrong turn.

Review essays may be formal or informal and may be more or less personal. Depending on the style of the review, “I” may or may not be used. More informal reviews may use humor, sarcasm and personal stories to highlight points about the work in question. Formal reviews should avoid these devices. With tone, it’s important to stay consistent. If a formal tone is chosen, it should be maintained throughout the piece, and the same is true for an informal tone.

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• How To Write A Review: Cambridge B2 First

• Posted on 24/07/2019
• Categories: Blog
• Tags: B2 First , Cambridge Exams , FCE , First Certificate , Resources to learn English , Writing

Students who are taking their B2 First Certificate exam (FCE) will be asked to do two pieces of writing within an 80 minute time limit. Part 1 is always an essay . Part 2 is where you can get a bit more creative. You might, for example, be asked to write a letter, a report or a review, all of which have their own style and set guidelines.

When writing a review it can be difficult to know where to start. But don’t be afraid! We are here to help you every step of the way.

Remember a review could be for a book, a film, a magazine, a restaurant or even a product .

Three steps to writing a great review

Let’s start with something simple. Imagine. You turn over the page to your writing part 2 and you see this question:

Question taken from Cambridge Assessment English website . (Feb 2018)

Step One: Make a plan

The first thing to do is to make a plan, just like we did in our B2 First essay guidelines .

Think of a book you read in which the main character behaved in a surprising way. This could be surprising in a good way, where the character does something amazing and helps somebody. Or maybe there’s a twist at the end and the character does something really shocking. Either way take some time to really think about your choice.

E.g. I’m going to choose The Great Gatsby, because I had to read the book 3 times when I was at school and I’ve seen the film so I feel like I know it really well .

The structure

Next, think of the structure. Consider all the parts of the question and use that to help organise your review. Make notes about the following:

• An interesting title
• A catchy introduction
• A summary of the plot
• A surprising moment
• Your recommendation

Remember you’re going to want to separate these with clear paragraphs that are going to help the examiner read to the end without getting a headache.

You also need to consider the tone and how the review should sound to the reader. Remember this is for a magazine. Think about all the magazines you like to read. You want to sound chatty and grab the reader’s attention, but not bore them to sleep. Think semi-formal but friendly!

Useful Vocabulary

Now brainstorm some useful vocabulary for your chosen book, including lots of adjectives. Avoid using boring adjectives like good or bad . It’s much more exciting to say ‘amazing’ and ‘disappointing’ or ‘ terrific ’ and ‘terrible’ .

Here’s some more useful vocabulary to get you started:

superficial / deceptive / fascinating / unbelievable / rich / lonely / kind / reserved/ to be set in / to be written by / prosperity / characters / jazz age / protagonist / atmosphere / author / chapter / ending / fictional towns / prohibition / novel / on the outskirts / sad story.

Your next step is to think of some linking phrases. These are going to help tie together your thoughts and bring your review to life!

• Overall if you like…
• I was pleasantly surprised by…
• In fact…
• What I disliked the most was…
• The book contains…
• As well as…
• This well-written book…
• Unbelievably…

Step Two: Write it

Once you have a solid plan, writing your review should be easy!

First start with an interesting title. E.g. The Unexpected Anti-Hero. It relates to both the book that’s being reviewed and the question. It’s also short and snappy .

Next write an engaging introduction. Maybe start with a rhetorical question, for example:

Are you a fan of the Jazz Age? Then this is the book for you!

Or a general statement about the book that will hook the reader:

The Great Gatsby is a classic, with many twists and turns.

You could also give some background information. Here we use the past simple:

The Great Gatsby was written by F.S.Fitzgerald and is set in prosperous Long Island in 1922.

The second paragraph should summarise the plot (note – we usually describe a story in present tense ):

Gatsby is a mysterious character, he has big extravagant parties, and we never know if we can trust him.

The third paragraph is where we introduce the surprising moment and reveal what the main character did and why it was surprising:

• The most shocking part is when…
• I couldn’t believe it when…
• It was so surprising when…

In the fourth paragraph, give a recommendation! Here the examiner wants to hear your overall opinion. It can be something simple:

• I strongly recommend..

Or something more inventive:

• I wouldn’t read the novel again because…
• Everyone should read this immediately!

But don’t forget to say why!

Step Three: Check it

Now you have your winning book review it’s time to check for all those little (and big) mistakes.

Make sure you check:

• You’ve answered all parts of the question.
• It is easy to read.
• Your spelling is correct.
• You’ve used the 3rd person(s).
• You have used punctuation.
• There’s a variety of nouns and adjectives.
• Pick a book you know quite well! Whether it’s Harry Potter or The Hunger Games , make sure you have lots to say about it!
• Don’t be afraid to give both negative and positive opinions!
• Experiment with using first person and try addressing the reader with ‘you’.
• Read lots of real authentic reviews online, anything from holidays to music concerts, exhibitions to video games!
• Remember to put some of your own personality into your review. Have some fun with it and good luck!

Follow the links for some excellent phrases and vocabulary for other types of reviews.

Restaurant Reviews

Film Reviews

TV / Theatre Reviews

Exhibition & Concert Reviews

Here are some more sample questions for you to practice on your own:

Choose one and post your reviews in the comments section.

Glossary for Language Learners

Find the following words in the article and then write down any new ones you didn’t know.

Twist (n): : a sudden change in a story that you do not expect..

Chatty (adj): having a friendly style.

Avoid doing something (v): to intentionally not do something.

Terrific (adj): excellent.

Snappy (adj): concise.

Hook (v): to catch.

adj = adjective

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• Critical Reviews

How to Write an Article Review (With Examples)

Last Updated: April 24, 2024 Fact Checked

Preparing to Write Your Review

Writing the article review, sample article reviews, expert q&a.

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 12 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 3,112,244 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."

Article Review 101

• 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.

• 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.

• 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. [9] 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.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ 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/

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Review Paper Format: How To Write A Review Article Fast

This guide aims to demystify the review paper format, presenting practical tips to help you accelerate the writing process. 

From understanding the structure to synthesising literature effectively, we’ll explore how to create a compelling review article swiftly, ensuring your work is both impactful and timely.

Whether you’re a seasoned researcher or a budding scholar, these insights will streamline your writing journey.

Research Paper, Review Paper Format

What Is A Review Paper?

Diving into the realm of scholarly communication, you might have stumbled upon a research review article.

This unique genre serves to synthesise existing data, offering a panoramic view of the current state of knowledge on a particular topic. 

Unlike a standard research article that presents original experiments, a review paper delves into published literature, aiming to: 

• clarify, and
• evaluate previous findings.

Imagine you’re tasked to write a review article. The starting point is often a burning research question. Your mission? To scour various journals, piecing together a well-structured narrative that not only summarises key findings but also identifies gaps in existing literature.

This is where the magic of review writing shines – it’s about creating a roadmap for future research, highlighting areas ripe for exploration.

Review articles come in different flavours, with systematic reviews and meta-analyses being the gold standards. The methodology here is meticulous, with a clear protocol for selecting and evaluating studies.

This rigorous approach ensures that your review is more than just an overview; it’s a critical analysis that adds depth to the understanding of the subject.

Crafting a good review requires mastering the art of citation. Every claim or observation you make needs to be backed by relevant literature. This not only lends credibility to your work but also provides a treasure trove of information for readers eager to delve deeper.

Types Of Review Paper

Not all review articles are created equal. Each type has its methodology, purpose, and format, catering to different research needs and questions.

Systematic Review Paper

First up is the systematic review, the crème de la crème of review types. It’s known for its rigorous methodology, involving a detailed plan for:

• identifying,
• selecting, and
• critically appraising relevant research. 

The aim? To answer a specific research question. Systematic reviews often include meta-analyses, where data from multiple studies are statistically combined to provide more robust conclusions. This review type is a cornerstone in evidence-based fields like healthcare.

Literature Review Paper

Then there’s the literature review, a broader type you might encounter.

Here, the goal is to give an overview of the main points and debates on a topic, without the stringent methodological framework of a systematic review.

Literature reviews are great for getting a grasp of the field and identifying where future research might head. Often reading literature review papers can help you to learn about a topic rather quickly.

Narrative Reviews

Narrative reviews allow for a more flexible approach. Authors of narrative reviews draw on existing literature to provide insights or critique a certain area of research.

This is generally done with a less formal structure than systematic reviews. This type is particularly useful for areas where it’s difficult to quantify findings across studies.

Scoping Reviews

Scoping reviews are gaining traction for their ability to map out the existing literature on a broad topic, identifying:

• key concepts,
• theories, and

Unlike systematic reviews, scoping reviews have a more exploratory approach, which can be particularly useful in emerging fields or for topics that haven’t been comprehensively reviewed before.

Each type of review serves a unique purpose and requires a specific skill set. Whether you’re looking to summarise existing findings, synthesise data for evidence-based practice, or explore new research territories, there’s a review type that fits the bill. 

Knowing how to write, read, and interpret these reviews can significantly enhance your understanding of any research area.

What Are The Parts In A Review Paper

A review paper has a pretty set structure, with minor changes here and there to suit the topic covered. The format not only organises your thoughts but also guides your readers through the complexities of your topic.

Title & Abstract

Starting with the title and abstract, you set the stage. The title should be a concise indicator of the content, making it easier for others to quickly tell what your article content is about.

As for the abstract, it should act as a descriptive summary, offering a snapshot of your review’s scope and findings. 

Introduction

The introduction lays the groundwork, presenting the research question that drives your review. It’s here you:

• justify the importance of your review,
• delineating the current state of knowledge and
• highlighting gaps.

This section aims to articulate the significance of the topic and your objective in exploring it.

Methodology

The methodology section is the backbone of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, detailing the research methods employed to select, assess, and synthesise studies. 

This transparency allows readers to gauge the rigour and reproducibility of your review. It’s a testament to the integrity of your work, showing how you’ve minimised bias.

The heart of your review lies in the body, where you:

• analyse, and
• critique existing literature.

This is where you synthesise evidence, draw connections, and present both sides of any argument. Well-structured paragraphs and clear subheadings guide readers through your analysis, offering insights and fostering a deeper understanding of the subject.

Discussion & Conclusion

The discussion or conclusion section is where you weave together the main points, reflecting on what your findings mean for the field.

It’s about connecting the dots, offering a synthesis of evidence that answers your initial research question. This part often hints at future research directions, suggesting areas that need further exploration due to gaps in existing knowledge.

Lastly, the citation list is your nod to the scholarly community, acknowledging the contributions of others. Each citation is a thread in the larger tapestry of academic discourse, enabling readers to delve deeper into the research that has shaped your review.

Tips To Write An Review Article Fast

Writing a review article quickly without sacrificing quality might seem like a tall order, but with the right approach, it’s entirely achievable. 

Clearly Define Your Research Question

Clearly define your research question. A focused question not only narrows down the scope of your literature search but also keeps your review concise and on track.

By honing in on a specific aspect of a broader topic, you can avoid the common pitfall of becoming overwhelmed by the vast expanse of available literature. This specificity allows you to zero in on the most relevant studies, making your review more impactful.

Efficient Literature Searching

Utilise databases specific to your field and employ advanced search techniques like Boolean operators. This can drastically reduce the time you spend sifting through irrelevant articles.

Additionally, leveraging citation chains—looking at who has cited a pivotal paper in your area and who it cites—can uncover valuable sources you might otherwise miss.

Organise Your Findings Systematically

Developing a robust organisation strategy is key. As you gather sources, categorize them based on themes or methodologies. This not only aids in structuring your review but also in identifying areas where research is lacking or abundant.

Tools like citation management software can be invaluable here, helping you keep track of your sources and their key points. We list out some of the best AI tools for academic research here. 

Build An Outline Before Writing

Don’t underestimate the power of a well-structured outline. A clear blueprint of your article can guide your writing process, ensuring that each section flows logically into the next.

This roadmap not only speeds up the writing process by providing a clear direction but also helps maintain coherence, ensuring your review article delivers a compelling narrative that advances understanding in your field.

Start Writing With The Easiest Sections

When it’s time to write, start with sections you find easiest. This might be the methodology or a particular thematic section where you feel most confident.

Getting words on the page can build momentum, making it easier to tackle more challenging sections later.

Remember, your first draft doesn’t have to be perfect; the goal is to start articulating your synthesis of the literature.

Learn How To Write An Article Review

Mastering the review paper format is a crucial step towards efficient academic writing. By adhering to the structured components outlined, you can streamline the creation of a compelling review article.

Embracing these guidelines not only speeds up the writing process but also enhances the clarity and impact of your work, ensuring your contributions to scholarly discourse are both valuable and timely.

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

Thank you for visiting Academia Insider.

We are here to help you navigate Academia as painlessly as possible. We are supported by our readers and by visiting you are helping us earn a small amount through ads and affiliate revenue - Thank you!

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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How To Write An A-Grade Literature Review

3 straightforward steps (with examples) + free template.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewed By: Dr. Eunice Rautenbach | October 2019

Quality research is about building onto the existing work of others , “standing on the shoulders of giants”, as Newton put it. The literature review chapter of your dissertation, thesis or research project is where you synthesise this prior work and lay the theoretical foundation for your own research.

Long story short, this chapter is a pretty big deal, which is why you want to make sure you get it right . In this post, I’ll show you exactly how to write a literature review in three straightforward steps, so you can conquer this vital chapter (the smart way).

Overview: The Literature Review Process

• Understanding the “ why “
• Finding the relevant literature
• Cataloguing and synthesising the information
• Outlining & writing up your literature review
• Example of a literature review

But first, the “why”…

Before we unpack how to write the literature review chapter, we’ve got to look at the why . To put it bluntly, if you don’t understand the function and purpose of the literature review process, there’s no way you can pull it off well. So, what exactly is the purpose of the literature review?

Well, there are (at least) four core functions:

• For you to gain an understanding (and demonstrate this understanding) of where the research is at currently, what the key arguments and disagreements are.
• For you to identify the gap(s) in the literature and then use this as justification for your own research topic.
• To help you build a conceptual framework for empirical testing (if applicable to your research topic).
• To inform your methodological choices and help you source tried and tested questionnaires (for interviews ) and measurement instruments (for surveys ).

Most students understand the first point but don’t give any thought to the rest. To get the most from the literature review process, you must keep all four points front of mind as you review the literature (more on this shortly), or you’ll land up with a wonky foundation.

Okay – with the why out the way, let’s move on to the how . As mentioned above, writing your literature review is a process, which I’ll break down into three steps:

• Finding the most suitable literature
• Understanding , distilling and organising the literature
• Planning and writing up your literature review chapter

Importantly, you must complete steps one and two before you start writing up your chapter. I know it’s very tempting, but don’t try to kill two birds with one stone and write as you read. You’ll invariably end up wasting huge amounts of time re-writing and re-shaping, or you’ll just land up with a disjointed, hard-to-digest mess . Instead, you need to read first and distil the information, then plan and execute the writing.

Step 1: Find the relevant literature

Naturally, the first step in the literature review journey is to hunt down the existing research that’s relevant to your topic. While you probably already have a decent base of this from your research proposal , you need to expand on this substantially in the dissertation or thesis itself.

Essentially, you need to be looking for any existing literature that potentially helps you answer your research question (or develop it, if that’s not yet pinned down). There are numerous ways to find relevant literature, but I’ll cover my top four tactics here. I’d suggest combining all four methods to ensure that nothing slips past you:

Method 1 – Google Scholar Scrubbing

Google’s academic search engine, Google Scholar , is a great starting point as it provides a good high-level view of the relevant journal articles for whatever keyword you throw at it. Most valuably, it tells you how many times each article has been cited, which gives you an idea of how credible (or at least, popular) it is. Some articles will be free to access, while others will require an account, which brings us to the next method.

Method 2 – University Database Scrounging

Generally, universities provide students with access to an online library, which provides access to many (but not all) of the major journals.

So, if you find an article using Google Scholar that requires paid access (which is quite likely), search for that article in your university’s database – if it’s listed there, you’ll have access. Note that, generally, the search engine capabilities of these databases are poor, so make sure you search for the exact article name, or you might not find it.

Method 3 – Journal Article Snowballing

At the end of every academic journal article, you’ll find a list of references. As with any academic writing, these references are the building blocks of the article, so if the article is relevant to your topic, there’s a good chance a portion of the referenced works will be too. Do a quick scan of the titles and see what seems relevant, then search for the relevant ones in your university’s database.

Method 4 – Dissertation Scavenging

Similar to Method 3 above, you can leverage other students’ dissertations. All you have to do is skim through literature review chapters of existing dissertations related to your topic and you’ll find a gold mine of potential literature. Usually, your university will provide you with access to previous students’ dissertations, but you can also find a much larger selection in the following databases:

• Open Access Theses & Dissertations
• Stanford SearchWorks

Keep in mind that dissertations and theses are not as academically sound as published, peer-reviewed journal articles (because they’re written by students, not professionals), so be sure to check the credibility of any sources you find using this method. You can do this by assessing the citation count of any given article in Google Scholar. If you need help with assessing the credibility of any article, or with finding relevant research in general, you can chat with one of our Research Specialists .

Alright – with a good base of literature firmly under your belt, it’s time to move onto the next step.

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Step 2: Log, catalogue and synthesise

Once you’ve built a little treasure trove of articles, it’s time to get reading and start digesting the information – what does it all mean?

While I present steps one and two (hunting and digesting) as sequential, in reality, it’s more of a back-and-forth tango – you’ll read a little , then have an idea, spot a new citation, or a new potential variable, and then go back to searching for articles. This is perfectly natural – through the reading process, your thoughts will develop , new avenues might crop up, and directional adjustments might arise. This is, after all, one of the main purposes of the literature review process (i.e. to familiarise yourself with the current state of research in your field).

As you’re working through your treasure chest, it’s essential that you simultaneously start organising the information. There are three aspects to this:

• Logging reference information
• Building an organised catalogue
• Distilling and synthesising the information

I’ll discuss each of these below:

2.1 – Log the reference information

As you read each article, you should add it to your reference management software. I usually recommend Mendeley for this purpose (see the Mendeley 101 video below), but you can use whichever software you’re comfortable with. Most importantly, make sure you load EVERY article you read into your reference manager, even if it doesn’t seem very relevant at the time.

2.2 – Build an organised catalogue

In the beginning, you might feel confident that you can remember who said what, where, and what their main arguments were. Trust me, you won’t. If you do a thorough review of the relevant literature (as you must!), you’re going to read many, many articles, and it’s simply impossible to remember who said what, when, and in what context . Also, without the bird’s eye view that a catalogue provides, you’ll miss connections between various articles, and have no view of how the research developed over time. Simply put, it’s essential to build your own catalogue of the literature.

I would suggest using Excel to build your catalogue, as it allows you to run filters, colour code and sort – all very useful when your list grows large (which it will). How you lay your spreadsheet out is up to you, but I’d suggest you have the following columns (at minimum):

• Author, date, title – Start with three columns containing this core information. This will make it easy for you to search for titles with certain words, order research by date, or group by author.
• Categories or keywords – You can either create multiple columns, one for each category/theme and then tick the relevant categories, or you can have one column with keywords.
• Key arguments/points – Use this column to succinctly convey the essence of the article, the key arguments and implications thereof for your research.
• Context – Note the socioeconomic context in which the research was undertaken. For example, US-based, respondents aged 25-35, lower- income, etc. This will be useful for making an argument about gaps in the research.
• Methodology – Note which methodology was used and why. Also, note any issues you feel arise due to the methodology. Again, you can use this to make an argument about gaps in the research.
• Quotations – Note down any quoteworthy lines you feel might be useful later.
• Notes – Make notes about anything not already covered. For example, linkages to or disagreements with other theories, questions raised but unanswered, shortcomings or limitations, and so forth.

If you’d like, you can try out our free catalog template here (see screenshot below).

2.3 – Digest and synthesise

Most importantly, as you work through the literature and build your catalogue, you need to synthesise all the information in your own mind – how does it all fit together? Look for links between the various articles and try to develop a bigger picture view of the state of the research. Some important questions to ask yourself are:

• What answers does the existing research provide to my own research questions ?
• Which points do the researchers agree (and disagree) on?
• How has the research developed over time?
• Where do the gaps in the current research lie?

To help you develop a big-picture view and synthesise all the information, you might find mind mapping software such as Freemind useful. Alternatively, if you’re a fan of physical note-taking, investing in a large whiteboard might work for you.

Step 3: Outline and write it up!

Once you’re satisfied that you have digested and distilled all the relevant literature in your mind, it’s time to put pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keyboard). There are two steps here – outlining and writing:

3.1 – Draw up your outline

Having spent so much time reading, it might be tempting to just start writing up without a clear structure in mind. However, it’s critically important to decide on your structure and develop a detailed outline before you write anything. Your literature review chapter needs to present a clear, logical and an easy to follow narrative – and that requires some planning. Don’t try to wing it!

Naturally, you won’t always follow the plan to the letter, but without a detailed outline, you’re more than likely going to end up with a disjointed pile of waffle , and then you’re going to spend a far greater amount of time re-writing, hacking and patching. The adage, “measure twice, cut once” is very suitable here.

In terms of structure, the first decision you’ll have to make is whether you’ll lay out your review thematically (into themes) or chronologically (by date/period). The right choice depends on your topic, research objectives and research questions, which we discuss in this article .

Once that’s decided, you need to draw up an outline of your entire chapter in bullet point format. Try to get as detailed as possible, so that you know exactly what you’ll cover where, how each section will connect to the next, and how your entire argument will develop throughout the chapter. Also, at this stage, it’s a good idea to allocate rough word count limits for each section, so that you can identify word count problems before you’ve spent weeks or months writing!

PS – check out our free literature review chapter template…

3.2 – Get writing

With a detailed outline at your side, it’s time to start writing up (finally!). At this stage, it’s common to feel a bit of writer’s block and find yourself procrastinating under the pressure of finally having to put something on paper. To help with this, remember that the objective of the first draft is not perfection – it’s simply to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper, after which you can refine them. The structure might change a little, the word count allocations might shift and shuffle, and you might add or remove a section – that’s all okay. Don’t worry about all this on your first draft – just get your thoughts down on paper.

Once you’ve got a full first draft (however rough it may be), step away from it for a day or two (longer if you can) and then come back at it with fresh eyes. Pay particular attention to the flow and narrative – does it fall fit together and flow from one section to another smoothly? Now’s the time to try to improve the linkage from each section to the next, tighten up the writing to be more concise, trim down word count and sand it down into a more digestible read.

Once you’ve done that, give your writing to a friend or colleague who is not a subject matter expert and ask them if they understand the overall discussion. The best way to assess this is to ask them to explain the chapter back to you. This technique will give you a strong indication of which points were clearly communicated and which weren’t. If you’re working with Grad Coach, this is a good time to have your Research Specialist review your chapter.

Finally, tighten it up and send it off to your supervisor for comment. Some might argue that you should be sending your work to your supervisor sooner than this (indeed your university might formally require this), but in my experience, supervisors are extremely short on time (and often patience), so, the more refined your chapter is, the less time they’ll waste on addressing basic issues (which you know about already) and the more time they’ll spend on valuable feedback that will increase your mark-earning potential.

Literature Review Example

In the video below, we unpack an actual literature review so that you can see how all the core components come together in reality.

Let’s Recap

In this post, we’ve covered how to research and write up a high-quality literature review chapter. Let’s do a quick recap of the key takeaways:

• It is essential to understand the WHY of the literature review before you read or write anything. Make sure you understand the 4 core functions of the process.
• The first step is to hunt down the relevant literature . You can do this using Google Scholar, your university database, the snowballing technique and by reviewing other dissertations and theses.
• Next, you need to log all the articles in your reference manager , build your own catalogue of literature and synthesise all the research.
• Following that, you need to develop a detailed outline of your entire chapter – the more detail the better. Don’t start writing without a clear outline (on paper, not in your head!)
• Write up your first draft in rough form – don’t aim for perfection. Remember, done beats perfect.
• Refine your second draft and get a layman’s perspective on it . Then tighten it up and submit it to your supervisor.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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38 Comments

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, getting college essay help: important do's and don’ts.

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Note:  This page reflects the latest version of the APA Publication Manual (i.e., APA 7), which released in October 2019. The equivalent resource for the older APA 6 style  can be found here .

Media Files: APA Sample Student Paper  ,  APA Sample Professional Paper

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Note: The APA Publication Manual, 7 th Edition specifies different formatting conventions for student  and  professional  papers (i.e., papers written for credit in a course and papers intended for scholarly publication). These differences mostly extend to the title page and running head. Crucially, citation practices do not differ between the two styles of paper.

However, for your convenience, we have provided two versions of our APA 7 sample paper below: one in  student style and one in  professional  style.

Note: For accessibility purposes, we have used "Track Changes" to make comments along the margins of these samples. Those authored by [AF] denote explanations of formatting and [AWC] denote directions for writing and citing in APA 7. 

APA 7 Student Paper:

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An Essayist Who Revels in Glorious Chaos

In her third essay collection, the poet and critic Elisa Gabbert celebrates literature and life through a voracious engagement with the world.

• Share full article

By Lily Meyer

Lily Meyer is a writer, critic and translator. Her debut novel, “Short War,” came out in April.

ANY PERSON IS THE ONLY SELF: Essays , by Elisa Gabbert

“Any Person Is the Only Self,” the poet and critic Elisa Gabbert’s third collection of nonfiction, opens with an essay that should be, but isn’t quite, a mission statement. She starts by describing the Denver Public Library’s shelf for recent returns, a miscellaneous display of disconnected works she habitually browsed in the years she lived in Colorado. In part, Gabbert (who is also the Book Review’s poetry columnist) was drawn to the shelf for its “negative hype,” its opposition to the churn of literary publicity. But mainly, she enjoyed playing the odds. “Randomness is interesting,” she writes; “randomness looks beautiful to me.” At the essay’s end, she declares, “I need randomness to be happy.”

So does her prose. When “Any Person Is the Only Self” embraces the random, it’s terrific. When Gabbert neatens or narrows her essays, though, they can feel more dutiful.

“Any Person Is the Only Self” — a seemingly random title, and one to ignore; it’s fussier and vaguer than any of Gabbert’s actual prose — is primarily a collection about reading, akin to Anne Fadiman’s “Ex Libris” or Alejandro Zambra’s “Not to Read.” But it is also a loose meditation on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on Gabbert’s life. During lockdown, she found herself yearning for the “subconscious energy” she gets “from strangers and from crowds, a complicating energy that produces ideas,” and relying on literature as a replacement. She developed a habit of listening to many hours of author interviews, seeking the social life she couldn’t have in person.

Unsurprisingly, this led to some soul-searching on the subject of writing, which appears in the gloriously scattershot “Somethingness (or, Why Write?).” In this essay, Gabbert is at her best. She strings together more than 30 writers’ reasons for writing, variously testing, mocking, admiring and relating to them. In doing this, she gives readers a kaleidoscopic view of ambition and inspiration, always looking toward the random or inexplicable elements of both. In her own case, she adds, she’s become obsessed with leaving behind a body of work, which, she’s decided, is “seven books, even short, minor books. … When I finish, if I finish, seven books I can retire from writing, or die.”

“Any Person Is the Only Self” is Gabbert’s seventh book, and although nothing about it is morbid, death shadows the text throughout. Of course, reflecting on Covid invites thoughts of mortality, but she also writes about her father-in-law’s passing, Sylvia Plath’s suicide and the recent trend of denouncing books by dead writers, as if it were “poor form to die.” (Gabbert, rightly, judges this both tacky and strange.)

But in literature, Gabbert finds not only life after death — she talks about the “metalife” of writing — but also a reason to live and engage with the world. “Any Person Is the Only Self” seems decidedly unlike the work of somebody who plans to retire from writing. Rather, it feels like an expression of gratitude for both the act of reading in itself and for reading as a route to conversation, a means of socializing, a way to connect.

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What is peer review?

Reviewers play a pivotal role in scholarly publishing. The peer review system exists to validate academic work, helps to improve the quality of published research, and increases networking possibilities within research communities. Despite criticisms, peer review is still the only widely accepted method for research validation and has continued successfully with relatively minor changes for some 350 years.

Elsevier relies on the peer review process to uphold the quality and validity of individual articles and the journals that publish them.

Peer review has been a formal part of scientific communication since the first scientific journals appeared more than 300 years ago. The Philosophical Transactions opens in new tab/window of the Royal Society is thought to be the first journal to formalize the peer review process opens in new tab/window under the editorship of Henry Oldenburg (1618- 1677).

Despite many criticisms about the integrity of peer review, the majority of the research community still believes peer review is the best form of scientific evaluation. This opinion was endorsed by the outcome of a survey Elsevier and Sense About Science conducted in 2009 opens in new tab/window and has since been further confirmed by other publisher and scholarly organization surveys. Furthermore, a  2015 survey by the Publishing Research Consortium opens in new tab/window , saw 82% of researchers agreeing that “without peer review there is no control in scientific communication.”

To learn more about peer review, visit Elsevier’s free e-learning platform  Researcher Academy opens in new tab/window and see our resources below.

The peer review process

Types of peer review.

Peer review comes in different flavours. Each model has its own advantages and disadvantages, and often one type of review will be preferred by a subject community. Before submitting or reviewing a paper, you must therefore check which type is employed by the journal so you are aware of the respective rules. In case of questions regarding the peer review model employed by the journal for which you have been invited to review, consult the journal’s homepage or contact the editorial office directly.  

Single anonymized review

In this type of review, the names of the reviewers are hidden from the author. This is the traditional method of reviewing and is the most common type by far. Points to consider regarding single anonymized review include:

Reviewer anonymity allows for impartial decisions , as the reviewers will not be influenced by potential criticism from the authors.

Authors may be concerned that reviewers in their field could delay publication, giving the reviewers a chance to publish first.

Reviewers may use their anonymity as justification for being unnecessarily critical or harsh when commenting on the authors’ work.

Double anonymized review

Both the reviewer and the author are anonymous in this model. Some advantages of this model are listed below.

Author anonymity limits reviewer bias, such as on author's gender, country of origin, academic status, or previous publication history.

Articles written by prestigious or renowned authors are considered based on the content of their papers, rather than their reputation.

But bear in mind that despite the above, reviewers can often identify the author through their writing style, subject matter, or self-citation – it is exceedingly difficult to guarantee total author anonymity. More information for authors can be found in our  double-anonymized peer review guidelines .

Triple anonymized review

With triple anonymized review, reviewers are anonymous to the author, and the author's identity is unknown to both the reviewers and the editor. Articles are anonymized at the submission stage and are handled in a way to minimize any potential bias towards the authors. However, it should be noted that: 

The complexities involved with anonymizing articles/authors to this level are considerable.

As with double anonymized review, there is still a possibility for the editor and/or reviewers to correctly identify the author(s) from their writing style, subject matter, citation patterns, or other methodologies.

Open review

Open peer review is an umbrella term for many different models aiming at greater transparency during and after the peer review process. The most common definition of open review is when both the reviewer and author are known to each other during the peer review process. Other types of open peer review consist of:

Publication of reviewers’ names on the article page 

Publication of peer review reports alongside the article, either signed or anonymous 

Publication of peer review reports (signed or anonymous) with authors’ and editors’ responses alongside the article 

Publication of the paper after pre-checks and opening a discussion forum to the community who can then comment (named or anonymous) on the article 

Many believe this is the best way to prevent malicious comments, stop plagiarism, prevent reviewers from following their own agenda, and encourage open, honest reviewing. Others see open review as a less honest process, in which politeness or fear of retribution may cause a reviewer to withhold or tone down criticism. For three years, five Elsevier journals experimented with publication of peer review reports (signed or anonymous) as articles alongside the accepted paper on ScienceDirect ( example opens in new tab/window ).

Read more about the experiment

More transparent peer review

Transparency is the key to trust in peer review and as such there is an increasing call towards more  transparency around the peer review process . In an effort to promote transparency in the peer review process, many Elsevier journals therefore publish the name of the handling editor of the published paper on ScienceDirect. Some journals also provide details about the number of reviewers who reviewed the article before acceptance. Furthermore, in order to provide updates and feedback to reviewers, most Elsevier journals inform reviewers about the editor’s decision and their peers’ recommendations. 

Article transfer service: sharing reviewer comments

Elsevier authors may be invited to  transfer  their article submission from one journal to another for free if their initial submission was not successful. 

As a referee, your review report (including all comments to the author and editor) will be transferred to the destination journal, along with the manuscript. The main benefit is that reviewers are not asked to review the same manuscript several times for different journals. 

Tools and resources

Interesting reads.

Chapter 2 of Academic and Professional Publishing, 2012, by Irene Hames in 2012 opens in new tab/window

"Is Peer Review in Crisis?" Perspectives in Publishing No 2, August 2004, by Adrian Mulligan opens in new tab/window

“The history of the peer-review process” Trends in Biotechnology, 2002, by Ray Spier opens in new tab/window

Reviewers’ Update articles

Peer review using today’s technology

Lifting the lid on publishing peer review reports: an interview with Bahar Mehmani and Flaminio Squazzoni

How face-to-face peer review can benefit authors and journals alike

Innovation in peer review: introducing “volunpeers”

Results masked review: peer review without publication bias

Elsevier Researcher Academy modules

The certified peer reviewer course opens in new tab/window

Transparency in peer review opens in new tab/window

A researcher fired by OpenAI published a 165-page essay on what to expect from AI in the next decade. We asked GPT-4 to summarize it.

• Leopold Aschenbrenner, a fired OpenAI researcher, published a 165-page essay on the future of AI.
• Aschenbrenner's treatise discusses rapid AI progress, security implications, and societal impact.
• Here's what GPT-4 says about Aschenbrenner's predictions.

Over the past few months, several employees have left OpenAI , citing concerns about the company's commitment to safety.

Besides making pithy exit announcements on X, they haven't said much about why they're worried about OpenAI's approach to development — or the future of artificial intelligence.

That is until earlier this week, when Leopold Aschenbrenner, a researcher who was fired from OpenAI in April, published his thoughts on the AI revolution in an epic 165-page treatise.

Aschenbrenner worked on OpenAI's superalignment team, which was tasked with mitigating AI risks. Aschenbrenner said OpenAI fired him for leaking information about the company's readiness for artificial general intelligence .

For his part, Aschenbrenner said the information he shared was "totally normal" and that OpenAI might have just been looking for a reason to fire him. He was one of several employees who refused to sign a letter calling for CEO Sam Altman's return after the board briefly ousted Altman last year.

Aschenbrenner's essay doesn't appear to include sensitive details about OpenAI. Instead, as Aschenbrenner writes on the dedication page, it's based on "publicly available information, my own ideas, general field knowledge, or SF gossip."

Business Insider uploaded the tract to OpenAI's GPT-4 model . We asked it to summarize the work and relay the most significant takeaways. We also gently requested that the bot keep its summary clear and concise.

Here's ChatGPT's 57-word summary of Aschenbrenner's essay

ChatGPT distilled the essay into 57 words that outlined Aschenbrenner's views on the evolution of AI.

"Leopold Aschenbrenner's essay discusses the transformative potential of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and superintelligence, and forecasts significant advancements in AI technology in the near future. Aschenbrenner, formerly associated with OpenAI, outlines how the progression from current AI models like GPT-4 to AGI could occur much faster than anticipated, based on trends in computational power and algorithmic efficiency."

ChatGPT then offered four key takeaways from Aschenbrenner's essay

Rapid Progress in AI

Related stories

"Aschenbrenner argues that AI development is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. He predicts that by 2027, AI models could reach the capabilities of human AI researchers and engineers, potentially leading to an intelligence explosion where AI surpasses human intelligence."

Economic and Security Implications

"The essay highlights the immense economic and security implications of these advancements. Aschenbrenner points out that trillions of dollars are being invested into developing the infrastructure needed to support these AI systems, such as GPUs, data centers, and power generation. He also emphasizes the critical need for securing these technologies to prevent misuse, particularly by state actors like the CCP."

Technical and Ethical Challenges

"The essay discusses the significant challenges in controlling AI systems smarter than humans, referring to this as the 'superalignment' problem. Managing this will be crucial to prevent catastrophic outcomes."

Predictions and Societal Impact

"Aschenbrenner suggests that few people truly understand the scale of change that AI is about to bring. He discusses the potential for AI to reshape industries, enhance national security, and pose new ethical and governance challenges."

There's more

As Aschenbrenner wrote, there are probably only a few hundred people, most of them in AI labs in San Francisco, who have "situational awareness" about the industry. These people will most likely have the best insight into how AI will reshape the years ahead.

Aschenbrenner, as one of them, seems to believe AI will assume a critical role in national security.

We followed up our original prompt by asking ChatGPT to summarize the predictions Aschenbrenner made in his essay.

Here's how ChatGPT broke it down.

• AGI by 2027: "Aschenbrenner predicts that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is strikingly plausible by 2027, highlighting the rapid progress from GPT-2 to GPT-4, which saw AI models advancing from preschool-level to smart high-schooler abilities in just four years. He expects a similar leap in the next few years based on consistent improvements in compute and algorithmic efficiency."
• Superintelligence Following AGI: "Post-AGI, the author anticipates an 'intelligence explosion,' where AI rapidly advances from human-level to superhuman capabilities. This transition is expected to be fueled by AI's ability to automate and accelerate its own research and development."
• Trillion-Dollar AI Clusters: "Economically, Aschenbrenner suggests that the AI sector will see an increase in investment into trillion-dollar compute clusters as corporations and governments prepare for the implications of AGI and superintelligence."
• National and Global Security Dynamics: "There are predictions about intense national security measures being enacted to manage and control AI developments. The competition, particularly with the Chinese government, could intensify, possibly leading to an 'all-out war' if not managed properly."
• Superalignment Challenges: "One of the most critical predictions is the struggle with 'superalignment' — the challenge of keeping superintelligent AI aligned with human values and interests. This problem is anticipated to be one of the central hurdles as AI reaches and surpasses human intelligence levels."
• Societal and Economic Transformations: "Aschenbrenner expects AI to have a profound impact on society and the economy, potentially leading to a restructuring of industries and the job market due to AI's capability to perform tasks currently managed by humans."
• The Project Involvement by the US Government: "Predictions include the US government becoming significantly involved in AI development by around 2027-2028 through a dedicated AGI project, likely due to the strategic importance of AI technology."
• Technological Mobilization: "He anticipates a mobilization of technological and industrial resources similar to historical wartime efforts, focusing on AI and its supporting infrastructure as a priority for national policy."

Here's the full prompt we used:

Role: Act as an editor. Task: Read the attached essay about former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. Instructions: Summarize the essay, highlighting the most significant takeaways. Focus on key contributions, research areas, and any notable impacts on the field. Ensure the summary is concise yet comprehensive, providing a clear understanding of Aschenbrenner's work and influence.

Watch: What is ChatGPT, and should we be afraid of AI chatbots?

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NeurIPS 2024 Datasets and Benchmarks Track

If you'd like to become a reviewer for the track, or recommend someone, please use this form .

The Datasets and Benchmarks track serves as a venue for high-quality publications, talks, and posters on highly valuable machine learning datasets and benchmarks, as well as a forum for discussions on how to improve dataset development. Datasets and benchmarks are crucial for the development of machine learning methods, but also require their own publishing and reviewing guidelines. For instance, datasets can often not be reviewed in a double-blind fashion, and hence full anonymization will not be required. On the other hand, they do require additional specific checks, such as a proper description of how the data was collected, whether they show intrinsic bias, and whether they will remain accessible. The Datasets and Benchmarks track is proud to support the open source movement by encouraging submissions of open-source libraries and tools that enable or accelerate ML research.

The previous editions of the Datasets and Benchmarks track were highly successful; you can view the accepted papers from 2021 , 2002 , and 2023 , and the winners of the best paper awards 2021 , 2022 and 2023

CRITERIA. W e are aiming for an equally stringent review as the main conference, yet better suited to datasets and benchmarks. Submissions to this track will be reviewed according to a set of criteria and best practices specifically designed for datasets and benchmarks , as described below. A key criterion is accessibility: datasets should be available and accessible , i.e. the data can be found and obtained without a personal request to the PI, and any required code should be open source. We encourage the authors to use Croissant format ( https://mlcommons.org/working-groups/data/croissant/ ) to document their datasets in machine readable way.   Next to a scientific paper, authors should also submit supplementary materials such as detail on how the data was collected and organised, what kind of information it contains, how it should be used ethically and responsibly, as well as how it will be made available and maintained.

RELATIONSHIP TO NeurIPS.  Submissions to the track will be part of the main NeurIPS conference , presented alongside the main conference papers. Accepted papers will be officially published in the NeurIPS proceedings .

SUBMISSIONS.  There will be one deadline this year. It is also still possible to submit datasets and benchmarks to the main conference (under the usual review process), but dual submission to both is not allowed (unless you retracted your paper from the main conference). We also cannot transfer papers from the main track to the D&B track. Authors can choose to submit either single-blind or double-blind . If it is possible to properly review the submission double-blind, i.e., reviewers do not need access to non-anonymous repositories to review the work, then authors can also choose to submit the work anonymously. Papers will not be publicly visible during the review process. Only accepted papers will become visible afterward. The reviews themselves are not visible during the review phase but will be published after decisions have been made. The datasets themselves should be accessible to reviewers but can be publicly released at a later date (see below). New authors cannot be added after the abstract deadline and they should have an OpenReview profile by the paper deadline. NeurIPS does not tolerate any collusion whereby authors secretly cooperate with reviewers, ACs or SACs to obtain favourable reviews.

SCOPE. This track welcomes all work on data-centric machine learning research (DMLR) and open-source libraries and tools that enable or accelerate ML research, covering ML datasets and benchmarks as well as algorithms, tools, methods, and analyses for working with ML data. This includes but is not limited to:

• New datasets, or carefully and thoughtfully designed (collections of) datasets based on previously available data.
• Data generators and reinforcement learning environments.
• Data-centric AI methods and tools, e.g. to measure and improve data quality or utility, or studies in data-centric AI that bring important new insight.
• Advanced practices in data collection and curation that are of general interest even if the data itself cannot be shared.
• Frameworks for responsible dataset development, audits of existing datasets, identifying significant problems with existing datasets and their use
• Benchmarks on new or existing datasets, as well as benchmarking tools.
• In-depth analyses of machine learning challenges and competitions (by organisers and/or participants) that yield important new insight.
• Systematic analyses of existing systems on novel datasets yielding important new insight.

Read our original blog post for more about why we started this track.

Important dates

• Abstract submission deadline: May 29, 2024
• Full paper submission and co-author registration deadline: Jun 5, 2024
• Supplementary materials submission deadline: Jun 12, 2024
• Review deadline - Jul 24, 2024
• Release of reviews and start of Author discussions on OpenReview: Aug 07, 2024
• End of author/reviewer discussions on OpenReview: Aug 31, 2024
• Author notification: Sep 26, 2024
• Camera-ready deadline: Oct 30, 2024 AOE

Note: The site will start accepting submissions on April 1 5 , 2024.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: My work is in scope for this track but possibly also for the main conference. Where should I submit it?

A: This is ultimately your choice. Consider the main contribution of the submission and how it should be reviewed. If the main contribution is a new dataset, benchmark, or other work that falls into the scope of the track (see above), then it is ideally reviewed accordingly. As discussed in our blog post, the reviewing procedures of the main conference are focused on algorithmic advances, analysis, and applications, while the reviewing in this track is equally stringent but designed to properly assess datasets and benchmarks. Other, more practical considerations are that this track allows single-blind reviewing (since anonymization is often impossible for hosted datasets) and intended audience, i.e., make your work more visible for people looking for datasets and benchmarks.

Q: How will paper accepted to this track be cited?

A: Accepted papers will appear as part of the official NeurIPS proceedings.

Q: Do I need to submit an abstract beforehand?

A: Yes, please check the important dates section for more information.

Q: My dataset requires open credentialized access. Can I submit to this track?

A: This will be possible on the condition that a credentialization is necessary for the public good (e.g. because of ethically sensitive medical data), and that an established credentialization procedure is in place that is 1) open to a large section of the public, 2) provides rapid response and access to the data, and 3) is guaranteed to be maintained for many years. A good example here is PhysioNet Credentialing, where users must first understand how to handle data with human subjects, yet is open to anyone who has learned and agrees with the rules. This should be seen as an exceptional measure, and NOT as a way to limit access to data for other reasons (e.g. to shield data behind a Data Transfer Agreement). Misuse would be grounds for desk rejection. During submission, you can indicate that your dataset involves open credentialized access, in which case the necessity, openness, and efficiency of the credentialization process itself will also be checked.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

A submission consists of:

• Please carefully follow the Latex template for this track when preparing proposals. We follow the NeurIPS format, but with the appropriate headings, and without hiding the names of the authors. Download the template as a bundle here .
• Papers should be submitted via OpenReview
• Reviewing is in principle single-blind, hence the paper should not be anonymized. In cases where the work can be reviewed equally well anonymously, anonymous submission is also allowed.
• During submission, you can add a public link to the dataset or benchmark data. If the dataset can only be released later, you must include instructions for reviewers on how to access the dataset. This can only be done after the first submission by sending an official note to the reviewers in OpenReview. We highly recommend making the dataset publicly available immediately or before the start of the NeurIPS conference. In select cases, requiring solid motivation, the release date can be stretched up to a year after the submission deadline.
• Dataset documentation and intended uses. Recommended documentation frameworks include datasheets for datasets , dataset nutrition labels , data statements for NLP , data cards , and accountability frameworks .
• URL to website/platform where the dataset/benchmark can be viewed and downloaded by the reviewers. 
• URL to Croissant metadata record documenting the dataset/benchmark available for viewing and downloading by the reviewers. You can create your Croissant metadata using e.g. the Python library available here: https://github.com/mlcommons/croissant
• Author statement that they bear all responsibility in case of violation of rights, etc., and confirmation of the data license.
• Hosting, licensing, and maintenance plan. The choice of hosting platform is yours, as long as you ensure access to the data (possibly through a curated interface) and will provide the necessary maintenance.
• Links to access the dataset and its metadata. This can be hidden upon submission if the dataset is not yet publicly available but must be added in the camera-ready version. In select cases, e.g when the data can only be released at a later date, this can be added afterward (up to a year after the submission deadline). Simulation environments should link to open source code repositories
• The dataset itself should ideally use an open and widely used data format. Provide a detailed explanation on how the dataset can be read. For simulation environments, use existing frameworks or explain how they can be used.
• Long-term preservation: It must be clear that the dataset will be available for a long time, either by uploading to a data repository or by explaining how the authors themselves will ensure this
• Explicit license: Authors must choose a license, ideally a CC license for datasets, or an open source license for code (e.g. RL environments). An overview of licenses can be found here: https://paperswithcode.com/datasets/license
• Add structured metadata to a dataset's meta-data page using Web standards (like schema.org and DCAT ): This allows it to be discovered and organized by anyone. A guide can be found here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/dataset . If you use an existing data repository, this is often done automatically.
• Highly recommended: a persistent dereferenceable identifier (e.g. a DOI  minted by a data repository or a prefix on identifiers.org ) for datasets, or a code repository (e.g. GitHub, GitLab,...) for code. If this is not possible or useful, please explain why.
• For benchmarks, the supplementary materials must ensure that all results are easily reproducible. Where possible, use a reproducibility framework such as the ML reproducibility checklist , or otherwise guarantee that all results can be easily reproduced, i.e. all necessary datasets, code, and evaluation procedures must be accessible and documented.
• For papers introducing best practices in creating or curating datasets and benchmarks, the above supplementary materials are not required.
• For papers resubmitted after being retracted from another venue: a brief discussion on the main concerns raised by previous reviewers and how you addressed them. You do not need to share the original reviews.
• For the dual submission and archiving, the policy follows the NeurIPS main track paper guideline .

Use of Large Language Models (LLMs): We welcome authors to use any tool that is suitable for preparing high-quality papers and research. However, we ask authors to keep in mind two important criteria. First, we expect papers to fully describe their methodology, and any tool that is important to that methodology, including the use of LLMs, should be described also. For example, authors should mention tools (including LLMs) that were used for data processing or filtering, visualization, facilitating or running experiments, and proving theorems. It may also be advisable to describe the use of LLMs in implementing the method (if this corresponds to an important, original, or non-standard component of the approach). Second, authors are responsible for the entire content of the paper, including all text and figures, so while authors are welcome to use any tool they wish for writing the paper, they must ensure that all text is correct and original.

REVIEWING AND SELECTION PROCESS

Reviewing will be single-blind, although authors can also submit anonymously if the submission allows that. A datasets and benchmarks program committee will be formed, consisting of experts on machine learning, dataset curation, and ethics. We will ensure diversity in the program committee, both in terms of background as well as technical expertise (e.g., data, ML, data ethics, social science expertise). Each paper will be reviewed by the members of the committee. In select cases where ethical concerns are flagged by reviewers, an ethics review may be performed as well.

Papers will not be publicly visible during the review process. Only accepted papers will become visible afterward. The reviews themselves are also not visible during the review phase but will be published after decisions have been made. Authors can choose to keep the datasets themselves hidden until a later release date, as long as reviewers have access.

The factors that will be considered when evaluating papers include:

• Utility and quality of the submission: Impact, originality, novelty, relevance to the NeurIPS community will all be considered. 
• Reproducibility: All submissions should be accompanied by sufficient information to reproduce the results described i.e. all necessary datasets, code, and evaluation procedures must be accessible and documented. We encourage the use of a reproducibility framework such as the ML reproducibility checklist to guarantee that all results can be easily reproduced. Benchmark submissions in particular should take care to ensure sufficient details are provided to ensure reproducibility. If submissions include code, please refer to the NeurIPS code submission guidelines .  
• Was code provided (e.g. in the supplementary material)? If provided, did you look at the code? Did you consider it useful in guiding your review? If not provided, did you wish code had been available?
• Ethics: Any ethical implications of the work should be addressed. Authors should rely on NeurIPS ethics guidelines as guidance for understanding ethical concerns.  
• Completeness of the relevant documentation: Per NeurIPS ethics guidelines , datasets must be accompanied by documentation communicating the details of the dataset as part of their submissions via structured templates (e.g. TODO). Sufficient detail must be provided on how the data was collected and organized, what kind of information it contains,  ethically and responsibly, and how it will be made available and maintained. 
• Licensing and access: Per NeurIPS ethics guidelines , authors should provide licenses for any datasets released. These should consider the intended use and limitations of the dataset, and develop licenses and terms of use to prevent misuse or inappropriate use.  
• Consent and privacy: Per  NeurIPS ethics guidelines , datasets should minimize the exposure of any personally identifiable information, unless informed consent from those individuals is provided to do so. Any paper that chooses to create a dataset with real data of real people should ask for the explicit consent of participants, or explain why they were unable to do so.
• Ethics and responsible use: Any ethical implications of new datasets should be addressed and guidelines for responsible use should be provided where appropriate. Note that, if your submission includes publicly available datasets (e.g. as part of a larger benchmark), you should also check these datasets for ethical issues. You remain responsible for the ethical implications of including existing datasets or other data sources in your work.
• Legal compliance: For datasets, authors should ensure awareness and compliance with regional legal requirements.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The following committee will provide advice on the organization of the track over the coming years: Sergio Escalera, Isabelle Guyon, Neil Lawrence, Dina Machuve, Olga Russakovsky, Joaquin Vanschoren, Serena Yeung.

DATASETS AND BENCHMARKS CHAIRS

Lora Aroyo, Google Francesco Locatello, Institute of Science and Technology Austria Lingjuan Lyu, Sony AI

Contact: [email protected]