Types of Publications - Social & Behavioral Sciences

Review Articles (not to be confused with "book reviews") are summaries of the results or conclusions from a large number of articles or books on a subject. They constitute a 'state-of-the-art' analysis of research in a field or subject area. An example is Annual Reviews in Psychology (see Tips for Doing a Literature Review in the Psychology subject guide). [Audience: scholars or researchers].

 Also, they will indicate the key or most significant articles to read, and may cover:

• recent major advances and discoveries
• significant gaps in the research
• current debates
• ideas of where research might go next

Two way to recognize Review Articles:

• articles are often quite lengthy
• they have extensive bibliographies or references (look at the end of the article to see how long the list is). 

Systematic Reviews are defined as “a review of the evidence on a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant primary research, and to extract and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review.” 

[Source: Undertaking Systematic Reviews of Research on Effectiveness. CRD’s Guidance for those Carrying Out or Commissioning Reviews. CRD Report Number 4 (2nd Edition). NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York. March 2001. ]