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MEDLINE Indexing Online Training Course

Category V - Publication Characteristics

REVIEW (PT)

The Publication Type Review will be used for articles that examine the published literature on a given subject. This includes clinical medicine, biomedical research, and life sciences in general. The review may be comprehensive or narrowly focused on a particular topic.

A Review article can usually be easily identified and distinguished from a typical research article which reports original findings

  • It may appear in the table of contents of the journal under the publishers rubric Review, Overview etc. . . .
  • The words Review or Overview may be in the title of the article.
  • The author may indicate in the introduction of the article that it is a review.

The format of a review article differs from the format of a typical research article.

  • A review article usually identifies references throughout the body of the article.
  • A review article usually does not have sections labeled Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion.

In some cases a review article may not have the characteristics described above. However, if it can be determined that the article meets the definition of a review, the publication type Review should be assigned.

Last Reviewed: April 15, 2015