Review Article. Can I do it alone?

[Hobaboba]

Hi, I just published one article three years ago for my thesis. Now, I want to publish a review article to add to my CV. Do I need a mentor? Or I can do it myself and how to start!

[fuzzylogician]

I'm not sure what field you're in and how review articles work in it; this would be something to consult with your advisor about. In particular, before beginning such a project you'd want to make sure that it's the logical thing to do to help your CV and career along. It may be the case that writing a review article isn't really the best strategy, and instead it would make more sense to invest your time in some side project that would yield publishable results but would not necessarily be your dissertation project. This is something that an experienced professor who knows you, your progress and your field will be able to give you better advice on than we can here, since we don't have any of that information. In addition, you should find out how review articles work in your field; in mine it's not really something you just write; instead you get invited to do so and normally these things are done by experienced professors, not graduate students.

[selecttext]

( didn't read the message before mine)

Edited March 27, 2013 by selecttext

[MadScience]

I think you will need a mentor to start because as Fuzzy stated review articles are typically requested by the journal to experts in the field.

 

During my MS, my mentor was asked to write a review for a particular journal on a topic that our lab was an expert in. He allowed me to write it though, so I received first authorship and he was the last author on the paper. So it can be done, but I would think you would need your "expert mentor" backing you on the paper to give it credibility.