: Re: How to improve a "dry" scientific review article? I am seeking suggestions to improve my "dry" writing style. I recently submitted a manuscript that was intended to be a review article on a

@Holmes449

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+1 DPT. As a peer-reviewer for scientific articles, I would not use "dry" but I suspect it means you have no particular factual errors but the paper is a boring review anyway.

For example, providing results as numbers without any context; "these guys did X, and found a fit of Y." So what?

The point of a review article is to show the progress, the state of the art, the recent advances, where the breakthroughs occurred or are likely to occur. If I finish your review of this topic, and feel no better informed on the current state of the art in that topic and the direction it is taking, then you failed.

Think of "dry" as in food, it is not satisfying the reason for conducting a review; namely showing the shape of the field. Where it's been. Where it is now. Where it is going.

What are researchers striving for?
How has that changed?
Where is the current bleeding edge of the research?
What are the recent successes?
What needs to be refined?
What approaches have been abandoned?
What's next?

Not necessarily ALL of those questions, but some of them should be answered. A list of facts with no interpretation is not satisfying.

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