{"id":990,"date":"2018-01-06T12:34:19","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T17:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portal.clas.ufl.edu\/writing--wdkb-v1\/?p=990"},"modified":"2021-10-28T13:43:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T17:43:31","slug":"teaching-review-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portal.clas.ufl.edu\/writing--wdkb-v1\/teacher\/teaching-review-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Review Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Review papers are an excellent choice when you want students to have an experience in advanced literacy, but don\u2019t need (or can’t arrange for) students to perform original research. They are very good for most STEM fields, especially the applied fields such as medicine. Most students pursuing undergraduate degrees in medical-related fields aren\u2019t intending on becoming researchers; most will become practitioners. And practitioners read more review or review-like papers (such as clinical guidelines and CMEs) than they do original research. Reviews also work well for teaching so-called “academic prose” to design fields, business students, etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A review paper teaches students about original research without performing that task itself. Because they encounter literature with many different types of method design, they gain some skill in analysis. Reviews are also excellent for teaching the points of view endemic to a given discipline. Unlike a research report, which is an exercise in generating data within a given field, reviews provide a more top-down perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

The disadvantage to a review paper is that it is <\/span>harder<\/i><\/b> to write than a research report. A lot harder. The research report is so highly conventionalized that it is relatively simple for students to write good reports, and I\u2019ve had students report back to me their writing had been deemed \u201celegant\u201d simply for having followed the standard IMRD template. Reviews, on the other hand, look suspiciously like the \u201cresearch papers\u201d or “lit reviews” that students were taught to write which mostly amounted to a serialized summation, an annotated bibliography in paragraphs. In fact, reviews are evaluative syntheses crafted to reflect a point of view. Stand-alone reviews are usually written by experienced researchers with the maturity required to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate disciplinary knowledge. Many journals publish by invitation only.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, review-type writing is an excellent strategy for teaching disciplinary thinking and communication.<\/p>\n

We recommend three major steps take place before students are set free to write a review. This process was figured out over many (often painful) years of grading semi-plagiarized or non-synthesized papers. I truly believe that if you follow a plan very much like what we lay out, you\u2019ll have a better time grading papers than if you do not. W<\/span>e put this together after years of getting papers that simply weren\u2019t that well-constructed despite considerable class time and the usual writing process activities.<\/span>\u00a0Given that, we only have anecdotal evidence for this claim, so consider this a \u201cbest practices\u201d statement, not an evidence-based one.\u00a0 The time it takes to put all of this together is considerable, so again, decide if you want this level of discipline-specific writing in your class, and if not, go for highly structured short papers instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Page 2 — Step One: Teach the literature in your field<\/a>
\nPage 3 — Step Two: Start with a short, controlled paper<\/a>
\nPage 4 — Step Three: Teach students how to craft a point of view<\/a>
\nPage 5 — Scheduling and Scaffolding<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Step One: Teach the Literature in your Field<\/h2>\n

Conducting original research is what makes a research report hard. The reading load is what makes writing reviews such a challenge. It is not enough to help students find sources on a topic. You have to teach them to READ in their field the way a disciplinary practitioner reads. This entails teaching students the kinds of genres they will encounter, the purpose of each genre, and strategies for understanding each. The medical field has done a particularly good job of modeling this because of the whole \u201cuser\u2019s guide to the medical literature\u201d movement that resulted in evidence-based medicine. (I\u2019ll use the med field as an example because it\u2019s easy to do so!) But every field has a body of literature its practitioners read. That literature is divided into types; the literature is evaluated for quality across those types. Students need to know this information. Call it something fun! — \u201cthe anatomy and physiology of the medical lit\u201d or \u201cthe topography of reading in geology\u201d or \u201ctaking a spin through the physics literature\u201d or \u201ca guided tour of the literature in urban planning\u201d.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> We know there is variation in how even highly standardized texts get written. However, students will learn more effectively if you choose example texts that are classically, conventionally composed. Once they learn to read for standard structure, you can show them variations.<\/p>\n

Big ways to think about the literature<\/h4>\n

Here are some typical ways that disciplinary literature gets divvied up.<\/span><\/p>\n