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Cite This: J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX

Writing a Review Article: A Graduate Level Writing Class Omotola O. Ogunsolu,† Jamie C. Wang,‡ and Kenneth Hanson*,†,‡ †

Materials Science and Engineering, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, United States Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32304, United States

‡

S Supporting Information *

ABSTRACT: Despite the importance of scientific writing in a chemists’ professional career, their development as scientific writers is often neglected in undergraduate and graduate curricula. Among the courses that do encourage students to generate written documents like proposals, lab reports, or essays, the scientific community rarely benefits from the resulting product. Here, we introduce an alternative graduate level writing class where the goal is for the students to generate a review article that is submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. This course structure allows students to build scientific reading and writing skills, learn about a new topic, and also enhance their resume with an additional publication and subsequent citations. Concurrently, the scientific community benefits from an additional resource. What follows is an outline of the review article writing course as well as the students’ feedback of the course and writing experience. Overall, the students felt the course was a lot of work. Yet, they also reported a greater understanding of the topic, a broadened knowledge base, and a better ability to quickly read and process literature. Despite the challengeswhich included compiling all of the papers for a given topic and managing the time to read and writethe students gained a new found appreciation for the amount of effort that goes into writing a review article, and they unanimously felt the results were commensurate with the work. KEYWORDS: Graduate Education/Research, Curriculum, Communication/Writing, Professional Development

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five students enroll in a 15 week, 3 credit course and spend 3 h of out-of-class work time each week, they will collectively accumulate ∼450 h of time spent on the course. While this effort is important for students’ personal and professional development, and it could even result in a fellowship,1 the scientific community does not immediately benefit. To counteract this shortcoming, we recently embarked on a new graduate level writing course where the end goal was for students to write and publish a review article. The product of this course, a 46 page review article, containing 467 references, was published in Chemical Society Reviews.21 This task lent itself nicely to learning and practicing many aspects of the scientific writing and peer-review process, including (1) becoming proficient at searching literature and compiling relevant references (2) narrowing down key content from a large body of literature (3) developing table and figure design skills and strategies (4) gaining experience with the writing, submission, and revision process associated with peer-reviewed publications

INTRODUCTION Scientific writing is a crucial part of a chemist’s professional career whether it is in academia, industry, or the government sector. Chemists in each of these areas are required to regularly write proposals, reports, patent disclosures, manuscripts, journal peer reviews, and more. Despite the critical need for scientific reading and writing skills, an aspiring chemist’s development as a scientific writer is often neglected in undergraduate and graduate curricula. For example, a majority of undergraduate students have minimal writing experience beyond standard lab reports.1 The demand for technical writing increases in graduate school due to prospectus, qualifying exam, and thesis requirements. However, many graduate students do not begin writing up their research results for publication until the third or fourth year of their degree program. A number of strategies have been proposed and implemented to improve chemistry students’ writing experience including creative writing assignments,2−4 literature readings followed by essay writing, 5−7 student peer review, 8,9 capstone writing courses,10−13 lab reports,14−18 workshops,19 and proposal writing courses.1,11,20 A missed opportunity in chemistry reading and writing development is that students spend a considerable amount of time and effort generating a product that is largely ignored or forgotten once the project concludes. To put this in context, if © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Received: November 2, 2017 Revised: March 11, 2018

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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00838 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX

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(5) publishing a peer-reviewed article In addition to learning about a new topic and professional skill development, the students benefited from resume building with an additional publication and subsequent citations, and the scientific community benefited from an additional reference compiling and critically reviewing the current literature in a given field. Herein, we outline the course content and the student’s perceptions of the course and writing experience.

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COURSE DESCRIPTION In Spring 2016, the 15 week class was listed as a Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry special topics course (pass or fail grading). It was scheduled to meet every Monday from 9am to noon and was open for enrollment by any graduate student at Florida State University. The total class enrollment included five students who were primarily in their second or third year of graduate school. Three graduate students were from the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, one from the Materials Science & Engineering program, and one was a postdoc auditing the course. Several decisions regarding the logistics of writing a review article were made prior to the start of the course. The first involved the general focus of the review article, which was multimolecular assembly on metal oxide surfaces. This was decided early as the corresponding author, the instructor (one of us, K.H.), must have expertise in the chosen review article field. This expertise is important for guiding the outlining and revision stages of the writing process. It is also a criteria reviewers are asked to consider when evaluating a review article submission. All of the students enrolled in the course had research experience with molecular photophysics, energy transfer, electron transfer, and generating and characterizing solar cells, which are topics discussed in the review article. With that said, aside from the general introduction into these areas, only ∼10% of the content in the final review article was directly related to the students research projects, with 3 of the 5 students covering topics they had not researched before. The second major decision was selecting a student leader for the project. There are many aspects of the writing process that cannot be performed as a group, so one student, who would also become the first author (one of us, J.C.W.), was designated as responsible for compiling the individual contributions, formatting the document, and formatting references. This student could have been chosen by several different strategies like voting or volunteering, but in this case, she was selected by the instructor because her research was directly related to the subject matter and she was reliably timely with tasks. The course outline is depicted in Figure 1 with week-by-week descriptions provided below.

Figure 1. Flowchart depicting the course timeline and content.

also discussed, and an introduction was given to the most common and highest impact journals that publish review articles (e.g., Chemical Reviews, Chemical Society Reviews, Coordination Chemistry Reviews, Accounts of Chemical Research). In addition to assigning a general search for keywords such as self-assembly, metal oxides, and dye-sensitized accompanied by the word review, these journals were partitioned between students to minimize effort overlap. During the subsequent week, students compiled articles in a shared cloud storage folder; in our case, we used DropBox, using a common naming scheme (First Author_Year_Journal_Subject) to prevent duplication. Week 2. View and Partition Review Articles, Second Assignment

During the second class meeting, the students looked through the list of compiled review articles, 117 total, and sorted them by general theme. The review articles were then partitioned among the students in preparation for the second assignment: to generate a single presentation slide for each assigned article. The summary slide was to include (1) the article’s publication year, title, and authors, (2) a bullet point list highlighting the major topics covered in the review, and (3) a figure from the review that succinctly summarizes its overarching theme. An example of the summary slide can be seen in Figure 2.22 Weeks 3−5. Summary Slide Presentations

During week three and a portion of week four, the students presented their summary slides. The presentations increased the students’ familiarity with the available literature and facilitated the identification of any deficiencies in the published reviews. It quickly became clear that some articles were directly relevant, and others were only tangentially related. The remaining portion of the week four class period was dedicated to a brainstorming session that involved listing any aspect of multimolecular assembly on metal oxide surfaces that would be appropriate to cover in a review article like assembly methods, intermolecular energy transfer, and aggregation. While referencing the list, all content that was sufficiently covered in previous reviewsfor example, chromophore− catalyst assembly strategies23 or theoretical modeling of chromophores at interfaces24were removed. The remaining

Week 1. Course Goals, First Assignment

The instructor (one of us, K.H.) introduced the theme of the review article and discussed a general outline for the class and writing process on the first half of the first day of class (Figure 1). Then the first task was assigned: compile every review article on the general theme that has been published during the last 15−20 years. The assignment was supplemented by an overview of literature searching engines like SciFinder and Google Scholar. While these search engines generally explore the same journals, their unique algorithms can yield different results even for the same keywords like “dye semiconductor review” and are helpful in maximizing search efficacy. Strategies for finding review articles via citing and cited references were B

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weeks, ∼10−20 summary slides for the earliest, most interesting, and most unique papers for each subtopic. Weeks 6−8. Literature Presentations and Outlines

In weeks 6−8, students presented a portion of their references for their first subtopics. The presentations shared notable results from key references and started to note common measurements and experimental observations among the collective. Following the presentations, students scheduled one-on-one meetings with the instructor to begin outlining their section of the review. The general outlining strategy focused on these tasks: (1) Introduce the conceptual foundation of the subtopic (2) Note some of the earliest examples (3) Share general observations among all the references (4) Discuss some unique references in greater detail (5) Describe current limitations and future prospects. An example of one of these rough outlines is shown in Figure 3a. Each outline was presented to the class (Figure 3b) to receive suggestions and constructive feedback via peer review.

Figure 2. Example of a summary slide of a previously published review article. Slide figures are reprinted with permission from ref 22. Copyright 2004 Elsevier.

Weeks 9 and 10. Individual Writing

Once the first round of presentations, rough outlines, and outline revisions were complete, the focus of the course shifted to individual writing. During this time, students began expanding the outline into paragraphs of text that summarize the important information for each bullet point. To avoid any formatting or compiling issues that can arise with reference formatting software, each student noted the references for their sections by including the web address for the relevant citation, within brackets (i.e., [http://www.___.com]), at the appropriate location in the text. The class still met during regular class periods, which allowed each student to share their progress on the text, equations, figures, and tables they were generating. These presentations served two purposes: (1) for students to offer feedback and suggestions to the author and (2) to provide intermittent deadlines that encouraged students to make progress on their portion of the project. During the presentations, the students also began suggesting figures to include, be it directly from literature or in new figures that summarized larger concepts. Usually, the new figures were hand-drawn sketches on paper or a whiteboard that were used as a placeholder until publication quality figures were generated (vide infra). Students also shared spreadsheets that were intended to convey and compare large amounts of data in a

content was then grouped into topic and subtopics. Decisions regarding topic areas were open to debate as it would play a major role in shaping the content and flow of the review article. The discussion primarily focused on deciding between partitioning the topics by assembly methods like co-deposition and metal-ion linkages or by phenomena like electron transfer and energy transfer. Ultimately, the class decided on the latter because each phenomena would require an introduction and would be easier to explain all at once. Once compiled, the topics and subtopics were organized on a whiteboard to generate the first full review article outline. Based on the scope of this outline, the title of the article was discussed and drafted. As an aside, this outline was then submitted to Chemical Society Reviews as required for their screening procedure prior to accepting full submissions (vide infra). The students then negotiated who would be responsible for each subtopic, usually by expertise and interest, until all were accounted for (2 or 3 per student). The students then compiled every relevant paper they could find for their given subtopic. The shared manuscript archive was reorganized per the outline, and a folder for each topic and subtopic was created. This allowed for the easy sharing of references with overlapping subject matter. Students were then asked to prepare, over 2

Figure 3. Example of a first draft of an outline from (a) whiteboard to (b) word processor version. C

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Figure 4. Example of a table (a) rough draft containing all the data and the (b) truncated, submitted table. Panel b was reprinted with permission from ref 21. Copyright 2018 Royal Society of Chemistry.

Figure 5. Figure progression through (a) hand drawn, (b) digital draft, and (c) final figure. Panel c was reprinted with permission from ref 21. Copyright 2018 Royal Society of Chemistry.

concise way. As depicted in Figure 4a, the first drafts often contained dozens of columns and rows for all the data that might be relevant to a particular measurement. The students then discussed which columns and examples were most relevant and revised the tables to only include the data that were useful in emphasizing the general trends and conclusions (Figure 4b). After the first drafts of each section were complete, they were transferred to the instructor for comments and revisions. The edited text was then sent back to the student for further revisions and updates.

Week 15 and Beyond. Compiling, Editing, and Revising

While a bulk of the content was generated, the entirety of the review article was not completed within the 15 week semester. Yet, since each student was heavily involved in the project and made major contributions, each received a passing grade for the course. Given that the class goal was to publish a review article, the students were willing to continue working on the project even after the semester concluded. During the ∼5 weeks following the end of the course, the class no longer met as a group, but each student continued their individual writing process. Subsequently, drafts of each subsection were compiled into a single document by the student leader (one of us, J.C.W.). The instructor and student leader then generated introductions for each topic as well as an overall introduction for the review article. Up until this point, the compiled draft contained only bracketed web addresses for the references. The student leader

Weeks 11−14. Repeat

When one subsection was completed, the process described above for weeks 6−10 was repeated for another subsection. By the end of this period, solid drafts for most review article subsections were completed. D

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manuscript was published.21 A celebration for the entire class quickly followed.

then began uploading the cited papers into the Endnote software package and then inserted the appropriately formatted references from Endnote into the manuscript. For figures taken directly from literature, the students were required to obtain the appropriate reproduction permissions from the respective journals. The new figures generated by the class underwent a general progression from a hand drawn image (Figure 5a), to a digital draft (Figure 5b), and finally to a publication quality figure (Figure 5c). The latter step required a high degree of collaboration between all authors to keep a consistent theme and design aesthetic. The images in Figure 5b,c, for example, were generated using a combination of Chem Draw and Microsoft PowerPoint.

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COURSE ASSESSMENT Given the limited number of students, it is difficult to objectively quantify success metrics for the course. However, a survey was given to qualitatively assess the students’ experiences in the course. The 20 question survey as well as the answers from all five of the students are provided in Supporting Information with general observations noted below. One of the most common themes throughout the responses was that the students learned a lot about the review article’s subject matter and most enjoyed learning topics outside of their direct expertise. They found the literature review aspect particularly useful in that it improved their ability to read through literature quickly and find key points. Reading through the large body of work also encouraged the students to rethink their own writing strategies in an effort to convey their message as quickly and clearly as possible. They expressed more appreciation for well-written papers and expressed a desire to recognize and emulate them. Along a similar vein, for those students that generated figures, the process made them appreciate quality figures and reconsider strategies for generating their own. Some students thought the project was highly collaborative via sharing papers, compiling content, and generating figures, while others did not, depending on their subtopics relation to others. In terms of what the students thought could be improved, the students recommended more hard deadlines, outlining subtopics earlier to help maintain focus, and to finish subtopic at a time in order to avoid re-reviewing content. Finally, all who took the class said they would recommend it to others and would provide the following advice to anyone considering taking it: • “I think anyone who wants to commit to scientific writing should be taking this course.” • “Be ready to read over 100 research articles. Start with those topics that you may be more familiar with to practice summarizing so that you will be more efficient on other articles.” • “Make sure to start all of the assignments early. Compiling data and thinking about the best way to organize it together takes a lot of time.” • “Find a way to keep track of references and what key information is in each one or you will need to re-read them several times.” • “This is a course that requires a lot of effort and hard work, so be prepared.” The most commonly expressed challenges students shared during the course included (1) compiling all of the papers for a given topic, (2) finding ways to organize large bodies of information, and (3) finding the time necessary to read and write for the class. Despite the challenges, all of the work gave the students a new-found appreciation for the amount of effort that goes into writing a review article and they unanimously felt the results were commensurate with the work. In terms of the instructors response to the course, he (one of us, K.H.) found it useful to write a review article in a coursebased format. In contrast to an informal writing process that are often only completed as a submission deadline approaches, the class required regular meeting times that quickly facilitated the writing process. The instructor agreed with the students that

Submission, Revision, and Acceptance

Unlike research-based manuscript submissions, many of the journals that exclusively publish review articles require authors to pass a preliminary screening before the full submission is recommended. During this screening phase, authors are required to submit a document that introduces the topic, describes the importance of the field, lists communities that may be interested, and includes a general outline of the review with important references cited. Around week 5 or 6 of the course, this document was drafted by the instructor, based on the outline generated during the class, and first draft was shared with students to incorporate their comments/revisions as well as to add important references from each of their sections. Once the target journal for the full review article was established, the final version of the manuscript began taking shape. In accord with Chemical Society Reviews formatting, students were required to generate short biographies and take photos which were then incorporated into the manuscript by the first author. The first author (one of us, J.C.W.) was also responsible for addressing journal-specific formatting requirements and sending a final draft to her fellow students and the instructor for final revisions. The students decided authorship order (other than first and corresponding authors) according to the size (i.e., percentage of the final documents total area) of each student’s contribution to the final manuscript. Each student was also required to suggest a reviewer that was appropriate for their given topic area primarily based on which authors were mentioned several times in a given section. A cover letter for the submission was then written by the instructor (one of us, K.H.) and shared with the students for review. When final drafts of both the manuscript and cover letter were approved by all authors, the first author submitted them to the journal. Following several weeks under review, the editor’s decision and reviewer comments were shared with the students. The class reconvened to partition the requested changes according to the author of the given subtopic. The revisions were compiled by the student leader (one of us, J.C.W.) and a reply to reviewers composed with the help of the instructor. The first author also made a point to address all editorial requests like fixing formatting mistakes and updating references. Upon completion, the revised manuscript and reply to reviewers document were circulated to the class for approval before submission. Once accepted and proofs were received, each student was required to proof-read the entire manuscript, document any mistakes, and share revisions with the student leader. After compiling all of the revisions and removing all duplicates, the changes were then submitted to the editor and the final E

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the course was a lot of time and effort. but he also benefited from learning more about the subject and publishing a paper. In the future, the instructor will take the students’ advice and implement more hard deadlines as well as help outline content earlier in the writing process. He is also interested by the possibility of using the first day of class to collectively decide the topic for the review article.

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CONCLUSION Here, we have introduced a new graduate level course intended to develop students’ scientific reading and writing skills through the process of writing and publishing a review article. The writing process consisted of several steps: (1) Compiling and presenting previous review articles (2) Listing under-covered topics (3) Partitioning the subtopics among the students (4) Compiling and presenting important papers for each subtopic (5) Outlining, writing, and revising each section (6) Compiling the final document (7) Submitting, revising, and acceptance Per their survey responses, it was clear that the students felt the course was a lot of work. Yet, the experience helped improve their understanding of the topic, broadened their knowledge base, and honed their ability to quickly read through and process literature. By way of the reading and writing process, they noted an increased awareness of high-quality publications and now strive to write in such a manner. They also offered advice for improving the course and suggestions for students considering enrolling in a similar course. Overall, it is safe to say that both the students and instructor found the class to be a rewarding experience and, as noted by one student, “it feels great to have been a part of something big.”

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ASSOCIATED CONTENT

S Supporting Information *

The Supporting Information is available on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00838. Survey questions and answers (PDF, DOCX)

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

Corresponding Author

*E-mail: [email protected]. ORCID

Omotola O. Ogunsolu: 0000-0002-9446-3027 Jamie C. Wang: 0000-0002-6531-1040 Kenneth Hanson: 0000-0001-7219-7808 Notes

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was partially supported by the Army Research Office under Grant No. W911NF-14-1-0660 and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE-1449440.

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REFERENCES

(1) McCarthy, B. D.; Dempsey, J. L. Cultivating Advanced Technical Writing Skills through a Graduate-Level Course on Writing Research Proposals. J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 94, 696−702. F

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(24) Pastore, M.; Etienne, T.; De Angelis, F. Structural and electronic properties of dye-sensitized TiO2 for solar cell applications: from single molecules to self-assembled monolayers. J. Mater. Chem. C 2016, 4, 4346−4373.

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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00838 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX