Review article

How it is used

Common in journals and databases when authors map the field, identify trends, or discuss strengths and limits across many studies.

Example sentences

1. Before planning her survey, the lecturer assigned a review article on bilingual education so the class could see the main debates.

   The term refers to a publication that organizes existing research for overview and comparison, helping readers understand the field first.

2. Our introduction cites a recent review article because it links scattered findings from psychology, education, and public health.

   Here it is useful because one source synthesizes many studies across disciplines, saving the writer from listing each one separately.

Common collocations

• systematic review article
• publish a review article
• review article on climate policy

Related terms

• literature reviewA critical summary of what has already been published on a topic, showing the main ideas, debates and gaps that a new study responds to.
• synthesizeTo combine ideas and findings from several sources into a connected whole that shows patterns, agreements and differences, rather than summarizing each source separately.

More terms: Literature Review

• literature
• research gap
• theoretical framework
• seminal
• draw on
• build on
• primary source
• secondary source
• systematic review
• database
• meta-analysis
• body of literature