Sociology 205: Graduate Writing and Publishing Seminar (Polonijo - Spring 2025)

Check out this short (1:26) video from the Rebecca Crown Library (Dominican University) to learn some differences between empirical (original research) and review articles.

Empirical articles are based on an experiment or study.  The authors will report the purpose of the study, the research methodology, and results. This is a familiar structure for empirical articles (IMRAD):

• introduction
• methods
• results
• discussion

In describing the purpose of their study, authors will present a mini literature review to discuss how previous research has led up to their original research project.

Also called:

• primary research article/source
• primary literature article
• original research article

Example: 

• The prevalence of sleep disorders in college students: Impact on academic performance

Review articles summarize or synthesize content from earlier published research and are useful for surveying the literature on a specific research area. Review articles can lead you to empirical articles.

There are several types.

• narrative: a literature review that describes and discusses the state of the science of a specific topic or theme.
• systematic: a comprehensive review of all relevant studies on a particular topic/question. The systematic review is created by following an explicit methodology for identifying/selecting the studies to include and evaluating their results.
• meta-analysis: the statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies. This is usually, but not always, presented with a systematic review.

Examples:

• Irwin, M. R. (2015). Why sleep is important for health: a psychoneuroimmunology perspective. Psychology, 66(1), 143.
• Hofmann, W., Friese, M., & Wiers, R. W. (2008). Impulsive versus reflective influences on health behavior: A theoretical framework and empirical review. Health Psychology Review, 2(2), 111-137.

Both empirical articles & literature reviews are:

• published in journals
• often peer-reviewed
• written by experts in the field

They are different in one important way:

Empirical articles report the findings of a research study, while review articles assess the findings of a variety of studies on a topic.