Skip to Main Content

Nutrition

Review Articles

In the Sciences, secondary sources are equal to review articles.

Secondary Sources in the Sciences: 

  • Literature reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses
  • Publications about the significance of research or experiments
  • Review of the results of several experiments or trials i.e. review articles 
  • Analysis of a clinical trial
  • Letters to the editor, editorials, perspectives, etc.

Note that meta-analyses, systematic reviews, or literature reviews may have a "Methods" section too. However, the methods will indicate that the authors have searched particular databases on a topic and then analyzed the results or have evaluated the important research articles on a topic. 

Example

This is a review article based on the following criteria: 

  • Title includes "review of the literature"
  • Evidence states "narrative review"
  • Phrases such as "conduct a review", "search of the literature", "inclusion criteria", and "analyzed"