Writing the Body of the Review
Writing the body to a review paper is perhaps the most creative writing act in science. After all, it’s the one section that you truly get to “make up”. When time is not an issue, the body to a review is generated following “emergent analysis,” a process by which the researcher dwells with his/her data until a novel organizational pattern emerges. This is not as batty as it may seem: one of the most important contributions a review makes is re-visioning the topic by considering it from a unique perspective (remember when Pluto used to a planet?). This step works best when you’ve got lots of time, such as when you are writing your dissertation.
When time is not a luxury you’ve got, then reviews tend to be organized according to patterns that already occur in nature and in writing. Broadly speaking, three approaches tend to dominate science: structure, function, system (e.g. what a cell is made of, what a cell does, how a cell plays with others). Reviews can also focus on “meta” concepts such as methods or really big ideas that cover an entire field of research. In Medicine, the possibilities include clinical approaches and patient-population specific work (see “Establish a POV”). There is no magic formula, though; you will have to decide what makes most sense given your topic and research motivation.
Synthesizing Sources
The previous two sections deal with how to think about literature as a review writer. In this section, we need to cover the primary writing strategy governing composition in any review work: synthesizing sources. Take a look at the image associated with this section. See how the incoming lines of color are circumscribed by the black box? That is your literature list contained by your POV. A few major strands of color work their way to the center, representing the major content sections of your analysis. The blue-red circle represents synthesis: the blending of component parts into a new whole.
Okay, let’s bring the metaphor down to earth with an actual example.
Consider the following first two sentences from a research article.
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication of critical illness1,2 and imposes a mortality of 50–70%.3–5 Notably, AKI is less common6 and less severe7 in women. [topic + clinical significance]
Here are the 7 sources cited above:
| 1. Ali T, Khan I, Simpson W, Prescott G, Townend J, Smith W, Macleod A. Incidence and outcomes in acute kidney injury: A comprehensive population-based study. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2007;18:1292–8. [PubMed]
2. Levy EM, Viscoli CM, Horwitz RI. The effect of acute renal failure on mortality. A cohort analysis. JAMA. 1996;275:1489–94. [PubMed] 3. Chertow GM, Lazarus JM, Paganini EP, Allgren RL, Lafayette RA, Sayegh MH. Predictors of mortality and the provision of dialysis in patients with acute tubular necrosis. The Auriculin Anaritide Acute Renal Failure Study Group J Am Soc Nephrol. 1998;9:692–8. 4. Lassnigg A, Schmidlin D, Mouhieddine M, Bachmann LM, Druml W, Bauer P, Hiesmayr M. Minimal changes of serum creatinine predict prognosis in patients after cardioth-racic surgery: A prospective cohort study. J Am Soc Neph-rol. 2004;15:1597–605. |
5. Metnitz PG, Krenn CG, Steltzer H, Lang T, Ploder J, Lenz K, Le Gall JR, Druml W. Effect of acute renal failure requiring renal replacement therapy on outcome in critically ill patients. Crit Care Med. 2002;30:2051–8. [PubMed]
6. Wei Q, Wang MH, Dong Z. Differential gender differences in ischemic and nephrotoxic acute renal failure. Am J Nephrol. 2005;25:491–9. [PubMed] 7. Xue JL, Daniels F, Star RA, Kimmel PL, Eggers PW, Molitoris BA, Himmelfarb J, Collins AJ. Incidence and mortality of acute renal failure in Medicare beneficiaries, 1992 to 2001. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2006;17:1135–42. [PubMed] |
Clearly, the information referred to in those sources in not summarized in the text itself. Instead, each sentence contains some claim, assertion, or piece of information that can be found in the source referent. We know the citations are required — evidence must be communicated! Thus born is the citation, that all-important explicit, overt marker of who created what:
Citation is the convention
governing the communication
of who is responsible for the evidence/information
used in scientific prose.
Synthesizing Sources: The CYA Strategy to Ethical Writing (a.k.a, avoiding plagiarism)
Why learn to synthesize sources? Because, in the sciences, quoting is frowned upon. Using a direct quote brings undue attention to language when science would prefer we concentrate on ideas. One of the best guides to understanding ethical writing and avoiding plagiarism is Miguel Roig’s Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing. In brief, Roig points out a paradox in science writing that is notoriously difficult to address:
This writing conundrum is further complicated by the recommendation to build expertise before you write…this is kind of difficult to do when writing is often required long before expertise is attained! Further, writing itself encourages the development of knowledge, implying that you will need to write in order to learn what it is you are writing about. What is a writer to do? The answer is SYNTHESIZE SOURCES. When you discuss the literature on a topic, you have the responsibility to read more than a single source for your information. Gone are the days of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. You must actively integrate high quality, scholarly sources. Why? You stand a lesser chance of committing unintentional plagiarism if you use more than one main source for your work. If 4 people have basically said the same thing, then when you say it – and cite all 4 sources – you are “proving” the publication history behind the idea and the reader is more confident that you know what you are talking about. Multiple citations are most common when providing definitions, discussions, and explanations of a topic.
General Tips for Synthesizing Sources
- Organize task by deciding what information you are looking for (Definitions? Arguments? Practices? Theories?).
- Mark similar information from each source in same manner (use the same color pen to highlight or underline; use a number system, etc.). So, mark all the information which is a definition in the same way, then all the examples, then the explanation, etc. If that is too complicated for the text, then mark information that you know is central and information that you are pretty sure is peripheral in different ways.
- Make lists of information shared among sources
- List 1: summary of info that is in all sources (probably means this is CENTRAL information)
- List 2: summary of info that is in some sources (could be CENTRAL, could be PERIPHERAL)
- List 3: separate lists of info that is NOT shared among sources (probably PERIPHERAL — meaning, specific to the source you are reading, but not necessarily to your research)
- Write your explanation incorporating the information from Lists 1, 2, and 3 — overall, it’s best to start with the information shared by all the sources, and then incorporate less shared information. Peripheral information should be included last, if at all. If what you really need to provide the reader is a solid foundation for understanding the concept, then peripheral (idiosyncratic) information is confusing. On the other hand, if you are providing an in-depth discussion of something, then idiosyncratic information has a place in the writing.
Suggestions for Citations
Put citations where they make the most sense: “Whichever documentation system you use, put each citation close to the information you wish to acknowledge. Do not automatically put cited material at the end of every sentence. For example, the following style…is ambiguous:
Pollination of Linaria vulgaris has been studied in both the field and the laboratory (Arnold, 1962; Howard, 1979).
Did Arnold do his studies in the field and Howard in the laboratory? Or Howard in the field and Arnold in the laboratory? Or both authors in both settings? Moving the first citation clarifies the situation:
Pollination of Linaria vulgaris has been studied in both the field (Arnold, 1962) and the laboratory (Howard, 1979).
If you actually meant to say that both Arnold and Howard did both types of study, then you are better off rewording the sentence: Arnold (1962) and Howard (1979) have studied the pollination of Linaria vulgaris in both the field and the laboratory.” (McMillan, 2006, 149)
Last not not least, for those ready to jump to a more sophisticated, meta-understanding of synthesizing sources, here is a pdf with annotated patterns of citation in text.