Submission Requirements For Literature Review Articles

Your Literature Review Article must include a Title Page, an Abstract, Key Words, Acknowledgements, and References Cited sections, in addition to the sections within the body of the manuscript.

Word limit: 5000 words (about 7-9 double-spaced pages). This does not include the title page, abstract, or references page.

Title Page: This includes the title of your manuscript, the author names, the author affiliations (e.g., your university), the public contact information for each author, and the Acknowledgements section.

Acknowledgements: Thank the people/organizations that have helped write, review, or offered feedback to your review article, but are not listed as authors. If your review article has a funding source, list that here as well.

Abstract: This is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the review article.This should be one single-spaced paragraph of no more than 250 words in length.

Key words: This is a list of up to five words or short phrases that are central and specific to your review. We will use these keywords to facilitate the retrieval of your paper from abstracting and indexing databases.

Body of Manuscript: A Review Article begins with an introduction that explains the relevance of the topic of review and how it relates to the bigger picture. The bigger picture can include other fields of science, other aspects of society, means of advancing our understanding of a topic, solving a lasting problem, etc.

Remember that the main goal of a review article is to give a broad overview of a specific aspect of science for others to learn from and become interested in. The middle section of a Review Article is often the bulk of the manuscript. It contains summaries of previously published research that are woven together to create a clear, objective story of what is known of the review topic. For example, if the topic of your (rather outdated) review article was on the discovery of a new and poorly understood animal called “an elephant”, you might describe how one research group confirmed that elephants have tails, another group found that elephants have thick skin, another group found that there is a high likelihood that elephants eat plants, etc. And your review would try to best paint the picture of what an elephant really is based on all of these bits and pieces of information that you and other scientists have collected in their investigations.

Methods: NONE, except if meta-analysis paper.

Results: NONE, except if meta-analysis paper.

Discussion: A review article often ends with a discussion of the future directions of the topic. This may include the possibility of new treatments, new methods, new understandings of the world, etc. The future directions will really depend on what you feel is the future of this topic or field of study you are reviewing. It is common to briefly describe new experimental directions that could be followed to advance the study of your review topic.

References Cited: All references should of course follow APA format. For more information on how to write an APA style paper, consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (2009) 6th edition.