What+is+a+Review+Paper?

= What is a Review Paper? =

The **purpose of a review paper** is to succinctly review __recent__ progress in a particular topic. Overall, the paper summarizes the current state of knowledge of the topic. It creates an understanding of the topic for the reader by discussing the findings presented in **recent research papers**.

**A review paper is not a "term paper" or book report**. It is __not__ merely a report on some references you found. Instead, a review paper synthesizes the results from several primary literature papers to produce a coherent argument about a topic or focused description of a field.

**Examples of scientific reviews can be found in:**
 * Scientific American
 * Science in the "Perspectives" and "Reviews" sections
 * Nature in the "News and Views" section
 * Compilations of reviews such as:
 * 1) //Current Opinion in Cell Biology//
 * 2) //Current Opinion in Genetics & Development//
 * 3) //Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology//
 * 4) //Annual Review of Physiology//
 * 5) //Trends in Ecology & Evolution//
 * Almost every scientific journal has special review articles.

**You should read articles from one or more of these sources to get examples of how your paper should be organized.**

Scientists commonly use reviews to communicate with each other and the general public. There are a wide variety of review styles from ones aimed at a general audience (e.g., //Scientific American//) to those directed at biologists within a particular subdiscipline (e.g., //Annual Review of Physiology//).

**A key aspect of a review paper is that it provides the evidence** for a particular point of view in a field. Thus, a large focus of your paper should be a description of the data that support or refute that point of view. In addition, you should inform the reader of the experimental techniques that were used to generate the data.

**The emphasis of a review paper is interpreting the primary literature on the subject.** You need to read several original research articles on the same topic and make your own conclusions about the meanings of those papers.