Review Articles (Health Sciences)

Review articles are full-length articles that summarize or review multiple articles, books, studies, or other types of information. There are many types of review articles. Each type of review article is created using different processes including:

• what information to summarize
• how to find the information to summarize
• the breadth and depth of the summary
• the number of authors involved

The processes used to create the review affect the validity of the review. See the table below comparing processes and uses for literature reviews and systematic reviews.

This guide covers understanding and creating systematic reviews and literature reviews (both manuscript-length literature reviews and paragraph-length literature reviews) and brief information about other review types.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Norris Medical Library:

• Email: medlib@usc.edu
• Ask a Norris Librarian by email
• Ask-a-USC Librarian by email
• Request a consultation
• Chat with USC Libraries

Wilson Dental Library:

• Email: wdl@usc.edu
• Contact WDL
• Schedule an appointment with a dental librarian
• Chat with USC Libraries

View Health Sciences Libraries tutorials or all USC Libraries tutorials