next »

[greyscale]

I applied for an award that included the opportunity for the winner to write a review article on a current topic for my field's journal. I didn't win the award, but the committee liked my review proposal and asked me to write it anyway. I'm curious if people have an opinion on this: Does it look bad to have a disproportionate number of review articles on your cv when you're quite junior? Obviously research is what really counts.

For reference, if I wrote it, my cv would look like this by the end of this year:
3 first-author review articles
2 first-author research articles
3 middle-author research articles and 1 middle-author review

I really enjoy writing reviews, and my first one is racking up lots of citations, so it definitely helped get my name out there. But I'm not sure there's much benefit to doing another.

[donstefano]

depends on your field I suppose. In my field, if you don't call it review article, most people wouldn't even know they're review articles

[locutus]

I've though about this a bit as I'm putting the finishing touches on a review article and have a decent idea for another one. I do think having less research articles than review articles will look strange. Not that reviews aren't valuable or hard work. I just think that a lot of programs value first and foremost someone who can produce research (and the related funds).

So I vote for working on research papers for now and holding off on that review paper, for the time being.

[post_doc4now]

I agree this is probably field dependant.

In my field it would be really weird to have that many review articles without research articles as well.  Typically, in my field people write a couple of research articles and then a review article or write a theoretical article and then a few research articles to test the theory.

I would suggest writing up whatever research articles you have ready to go now, and then during a lull work on the review paper.

[greyscale]

My field is molecular biology. It is somewhat unusual to write many reviews as a grad student/postdoc in my field. It is also obvious which things are reviews; all papers are indexed in PubMed and reviews are tagged as such. (I also have them split out into a separate heading on my cv, so that no one thinks I'm inflating my publication record.)

[terpsichore]

My field is molecular biology. It is somewhat unusual to write many reviews as a grad student/postdoc in my field. It is also obvious which things are reviews; all papers are indexed in PubMed and reviews are tagged as such. (I also have them split out into a separate heading on my cv, so that no one thinks I'm inflating my publication record.)

If the review articles are peer-reviewed, I don't see any need to put them in a separate category on your CV.

[bigsky]

When we see a junior applicant with several review articles we figure it is a reflection of their postdoc or PhD advisor's prominence in a field, not the applicant. As such, I place a higher value on research articles that address hypotheses over literature reviews.

Personally, I would make sure you have more primary authored research papers than reviews. You can always write the reviews when you have a TT job and they should count as much as the research papers for tenure.

[koda_kube]

I think review articles are very useful to gain knowledge in a subject area without having to do a huge lit search.  However I hate it when a grad student continually cites the review paper instead of going to the source material.  Review papers tend to gain much more citations than research papers which is useful if your head of department asks what is the 'impact' of your research.

In Science - a couple of review papers are OK but I prefer to see research papers

[locutus]

(I also have them split out into a separate heading on my cv, so that no one thinks I'm inflating my publication record.)

Interesting. I've never heard of anyone doing that.

[luckyduck]

(I also have them split out into a separate heading on my cv, so that no one thinks I'm inflating my publication record.)

Interesting. I've never heard of anyone doing that.

Yes, interesting.  It seems reasonable, given the other posters' reservations about doing too much review work, to clearly delineate the two types of work.  I and others don't like to have to sort through a CV to see "real" articles, i.e. research-based experimental work.  Yes, reviews may be peer-reviewed (although some are NOT, besides the editor's approval), but they don't carry the same weight to me.

But it looks like the OP has 5 research articles and 4 review ones.  Regardless of the review work, 5 peer-reviewed journal articles while still in grad school is good.  Are you a graduate student or a post-doc, though?  I'd still leave off the review articles for now and focus on the research.

[greyscale]

But it looks like the OP has 5 research articles and 4 review ones.  Regardless of the review work, 5 peer-reviewed journal articles while still in grad school is good.  Are you a graduate student or a post-doc, though?  I'd still leave off the review articles for now and focus on the research.

Grad student, just about to graduate and start a postdoc. I should clarify that two of those research papers aren't written yet, except as nascent thesis chapters, but they have very good odds of existing by the end of the year. And of course, some count more than others.

I'll have to get more data. I think it's pretty common for people in my department to split out review articles on their CVs, but I'll ask around.

Thanks for all the perspectives, everyone.

[juniper]

I'm at a medical school and our CV format requires splitting original research from reviews too (we have other subcategories as well). Only peer-reviewed original research counts toward promotion - reviews are worthless in that respect. On the other hand, I find it worthwhile to write reviews from time to time because the process helps me to understand where the gaps in the literature are in my field, and I use that information when I write grants (and vice versa - a background & significance section that you write for a grant can be easily turned into a review article).

[john_proctor]

I think review articles become a demerit if:

1. they are "all over the place" in terms of speciality.  That makes it look like you're just doing hack work for the sake of getting a by-line in print somewhere and not seriously pursuing a scholarly niche.

2. You try to pass them off as what they aren't (i.e. make them equivalent to non-review writing and scholarhsip).

3.  You so grossly emphasize reviews that you don't also do independent work.  If you can crank out 10 a year AND still retain niche focus AND still produce independent work at a high level, I can't see any loss.  If, however, you neglect other research and writing to just pursue reviews . . .

4. The quality of your review work is lacking.

I consider review articles of all sorts legitimate forms of scholarly production.

In part, a major portion of scholarship is the evaluation / taxonomy / assessment of other work (scholarship is more than just inventing new concepts or methodologies; it also involves critical analysis and summary of existing work).

A general, I think: Good review writing will, at worst, be ignored by others as less-than-original/peer reviewed writing.  If you could take out your reviews and still have a strong publication record, then things are fine.  If taking out the reviews eviscerates your publication record, you have too many (no matter how many).