I agree with all the above discussion. After so many years I still have no clue which one is more credited. But, I always appreciate a good review article that can quickly give me an overview about a new concept. I personally tend to give more credit to a good review article than a research article. Unfortunately, some review articles can give you 30+ pages to read and hundreds of references but simply just compile all the findings together without appropriate digestion or assimilation. If I can hire anyone I will look into the content and quality of the articles regardless of research or review.

Exactly, thats my point Ahed. Writing review article I think is more difficult task than writing a research article. Because You know the background of your work, methodologies, results and you conclude something meaningful out of it. But for a reviewe article, you really need to spend a lot of time, read a lot, understant many things before getting into it. And after all these exercise, if it is not given even importance in judging somebody's application then it is unfair on his/her part, isnt it?

But I might be wrong in my thinking and I dont know really know how seniors think about it and I would really like to have opinions and views from you all.

This is very different to write research vs review articles. In the first case, you create something original, in the second case you talk about original things you or others have created. Both are useful, but very different. It is like asking what is better between making a film vs writing a book about cinema or writing a piece of music vs talking about music: you can't really compare, these are different. Individual scientists usually do both (most often to promote their own work by discussing how important it is to the field), but you can't substitute one with the other.

I agree with all the above discussion. After so many years I still have no clue which one is more credited. But, I always appreciate a good review article that can quickly give me an overview about a new concept. I personally tend to give more credit to a good review article than a research article. Unfortunately, some review articles can give you 30+ pages to read and hundreds of references but simply just compile all the findings together without appropriate digestion or assimilation. If I can hire anyone I will look into the content and quality of the articles regardless of research or review.

Let us first decide what we mean by a research article and review article:

Research Articles:

When scientists and other scholars want to make the results of their work public, they usually begin by publishing them in a scholarly journal with a title like New England Journal of Medicine, or Journal of Cell Biology.

- http://www.lib.utexas.edu/lsl/help/modules/research.html

Review Articles:

Review articles are an attempt by one or more writers to sum up the current state of the research on a particular topic. Ideally, the writer searches for everything relevant to the topic, and then sorts it all out into a coherent view of the “state of the art” as it now stands.

- http://www.lib.utexas.edu/lsl/help/modules/review.html

Both are equally important. In fact the research article is more relevant to the specialist and the review article could in some cases attract a wider spectrum of people, the specialists and the non-specialist.

A review article in my opinion is a summation of pros and cons, concordant, divergent and divulge viewpoints relatively about a broader subject matter, from its inception till date,attracting wider audiences and is pretty useful for beginners and experienced researchers to get the gist of a given subject. It does not usually include finer or specific details of the subject and may or may not be writer's own research or even viewpoint and hardly any prescribed format.

On the other hand, a research article is a specialized piece of work conducted by an individual or a group of researchers presenting their very own and specific findings and viewpoint on a narrower subject, in a given format. It usually attracts lesser readership particularly those interested in the same subject or related subject matter, most of whom are contemporaries.

Majority of the current scientific journals publish a combination of both review and research articles. However, more and more journals now are vying for review articles to gain popularity and increased impact factor.

@ Issam and Naresh: Many thanks for providing your views and insight into a research article and review article. If suppose an applicant has 3 research articles and 2 review articles published to his credit, then, Naresh,as an employer, you would consider his/her number of publications 5 or 3?

@ Ru-Jen: I completely agree and respect your point. If one has a very fine review article to once credit, then that must be considered while hiring I think.

@ Xavier: Definitely, one cant substitute a review article with research article, but my point is writing a review article also takes equal efforts, or rather more efforts than writing a research article (of course you spend a lot of time designing and performing your experiments, getting the results, making some sense out of it) so at least some weightage should be give if not equal, in judging ones calibre or candidature. What do you think about it as an employers perspective?

Dear Ashraf

please don't undrestimate the importance of the review article. I am an employer and I will definitly look equally into both. In your example,yes I will consider the applicant to have 5 publications.

Dear Issam

We are in the same league again! I could not agree more with you Issam :D

Dear Friends, I think it would again depend upon the nature of job and its requirements. Since most of the jobs are in research or academia, therefore we are looking for originality, thinking, practical experience and problem solving approach and more often a specialized work within a project, Thus in this setting, research publications seem to carry more weight and that what most employers look for.

However, in jobs like reviewer or editorship or proof reader, I would rather look for review articles than research articles. A word of caution, a candidate may have both the capabilities even with or without the experience of both in the real world.

There are many different to write research vs review articles. In the first case, you create something original you think about the problem and seek for the solutions, in the second case you talk about things others have created,It is difficult but the data is not yours.

Sure, Dr. Anwar, for review article, most of the data or all of the data is not yours and somebody else's. But isnt it more difficult to use somebody else's data and make a kind of story out of many different data from many different people in that particular topic? For original research article, data is all yours, you performed experiments addressing a specific question and you expect some kind of result in it. So in short, you know what to do, what to get and how to conclude your data and it becomes easier that way.

Ashraf

It depends on whether it is a narrative review paper, a systematic review or a meta-analysis. As a general rule, systematic reviews/meta-analyses tend to be highly cited. However, whether your paper is a systematic review or based on an original research, their impact will depend on where they have been published (Journal impact factor and its H-Index) and the number of citation the paper attracts.

Again Friends, I am of the opinion that for the best results a review must be written by a person who has rich experience of researching the problem, at least a part of it ,and some of his research papers must get mention in the bibliography. That makes a perfect combination and comes only after a lot of years of hard work.

The person first publish its research article and then on that topic if they write review article, it has more impact on its work.Many university selection committee consider this criteria for selection

I think that research article is more considered because need the direct envolvement of researcher in the choice of material and find the own conclusions. The revision articles frequently are the compilation of many articles about a especific topic, and consider some outdates or never stantardized features about the topic. For this reason they are are very ample. The article "type state of art" are more brief and bring at this moment informations.

I tend to agree with Ahed but a lot of the time the juniors are asked by the seniors to write a review article because the seniors have no time to do it. If a junior in early stage thoroughly reads through all articles and digests them appropriately then I see no reason why not to allow the junior to write it up?

I too agree with Ru-Jeng. In addition, I personally feel that, while writing a review article, one tends to read a lot and get a lot and in depth knowledge about the topic which would certainly be helpful for a junior researcher to broaden his/her knowledge.

Most researchers would want to publish their own results first and then later on in their career publish a review article.

Totally agree with Ashraf and Ahed. We learn from preparing a review article which is definitely not a bad thing for junior researchers. But, I do appreciate that the review is prepared after thorough digestion and organized in a easy to read fashion. I beleive most readers for the review articles are somebody not in the same field or just a beginner who is trying to get a easy start.

One reality in finding a job is the fame of the boss and whether the boss will provide a very supportive reference letter.

The last point from Ru-Jeng might raise another interesting question, what are things apart from publications, an employer looks while selecting a candidate for open position?

Just sharing, in my opinion: The Researcher is like chef or kitchener that planting vegetables themselves, wash themselves, cook and served to enjoy together while the writer of review article is like a chef who purchase materials to cook from market or super market and ready to be cooked and served with a special menu to enjoy together. The result depends on the taste by those who have eaten the menu

Amazing example Syefudin :D

The impact of a review article versus original work is going to depend on the country in which the writer resides. In the US, if we examine the scenario where a young researcher is applying for a job at an academic institution, there is no question that original papers, especially those in reasonably good journals, are going to be more highly regarded than just straight review articles. This is also true for promotion and tenure. At academic institutions, original ideas and new information are most highly valued and considered central to the mission of the academic scientist. So given equal numbers of review articles versus original papers, there is no question that the latter is more highly regarded. This does not mean review articles are worthless, just that a candidate in which review articles are a large part of their academic output will be at a disadvantage.

It probably depends a lot on the expectations of the institution. Generating new original scientific work that is interesting is probably more important for junior people, however - doing a thorough review on an important topic for a high impact journal is likely to be more useful than doing a relatively low-impact original scientific paper.

Just to add my two cents to the discussion, I think it depends on your objectives.

Personal objectives and scientific recognition : At a beginning of a study, a review might be a good thing to get familiar with a subject, and when produced later on, with more maturity, it can be also be useful to settle down your ideas. Moreover, if your review is good, you might prove useful for a lot of people and get a lot of citations...

Now, on the "career" point of view, I think like James that most of the time reviews will be less considered as articles, especially an article in a good journal. It guess that someone who hires a post doc expects "concrete" results on a concrete problematics, hence "regular publications" as opposed to reviews which might be considered as more "theoretical" things.

I hope it adds something to this discussion, but I had a lot of work checking references about the subject of my research in the beggining of my masters (and I kept doing it until now). The ammount of information that I got is a good review of references for my thesis, and I believe maybe it could suit a review article as well, maybe changing the focus of it a little bit...

And also, I've noticed that informmally review articles are regarded as less valuable in my University, based on the way the Professors talk about it. Like "Aw, but this is only a review..." Again, this is just informally.

As been discussed above I would also say that a review article has a higher position in the hierarchy of literature...... but i really liked the example of the chef given by Syaefudin Sir..... what really matters is the taste......

We should differentiate between the impact of the review article upon the author(s) and its impact upon readers. For the author he is mostly an expert in the field and this will bring him more citations and improvement to his H-index. For the readers it will benefit him when starting a project or writing the introduction of a research article or discussing the results. However, for the experimental part of a new research the reader will mostly refer to the original research document from which the review article had been abstracted.

Reviews are a broad category of articles. A review may be a narrative review, a systematic review or a meta-analysis. A narrative review is more like a short book chapter. Having a narrative review published is a matter of prestige since most journal editors (including myself) ask the authors to submit a short note on their achievements in the field before submitting the review. Therefore narrative reviews are generally accepted from experienced people only.

On the other hand, systematic reviews and meta-analyses are considered primary studies and are credited MORE than original studies. As an editor, what I would look for in the papers is the amount of contribution to medicine. The degree of contribution of a systematic review or a meta-analysis can not be matched even by the largest of trials. I'm sure that committees evaluating the work of scientists would also think on the same lines.

However I also want to add that this does not mean that if a person's publication list is composed entirely of reviews, he would be considered a good scientist. There should be a balance of both. :)

So the consensus from this discussion seems to be giving less importance to review articles, at least with employers perspective.. I think this can be obvious too because employer certainly looks at the experimental skills an applicant has got, which he/she could know only from the number of original research articles an applicant has.

But in every or majority of the job postings, there is a requirement, "Applicant should have good spoken and written communication skills". I think this criteria can be well judged by applicants review article in addition to his original research articles.

I personally like review articles in my research field. For hiring podtdoc and Ph.D. studentship, i would prefer research articles over the review one because research articles give the true picture about the research one has really done.

Thus Friends for a researcher both the research and review articles are brain childs and increasingly important. The former reflects one's ingenuity to conceive and execute an experiment or hypothesis, particularly the practical skills.The latter shows one's capacity to analyze, summarize and present existing knowledge in unambiguous and easy to comprehend format. Both compliment and supplement in the transformation of a researcher to a scientist, leaving aside job opportunities. They are ought to come naturally.

Review article is the compilation/overview of the background research in the relevant area, whereas a research article comprises of brief introduction, methodology and expression of results with relevant discussion concomitant with 'Concluding Remarks'. Therefore, in my opinion, both review article and research article have subjective impact, although they are equally important as per their need and application for propagation of the research studies along the specific notions and objectives. Further, my suggestion to young researchers to focus on communication of the research articles in the nascent phase of research followed by processing of review articles citing either their own and/or supervisor's references of relevance.

I think they are equally important from the point of scientific literature. However, a research article is a milestone in the development in the field or a new discovery and a review article may not be.

I think that question was answered in all possible features. The comentaries to render repeated.

IMHO, peer reviewed research publication containing original idea(s) is the driving force of science and IS the primary goal of any researcher and therefore should get highest priority. Review articles, howsoever nicely written by any expert(s), are still tantamount to simple structured and thematic collections unless a review article in turn is iconoclastic and/or shows new directions and vistas through the distillation of already existing information. An original research article is like the source of pure water and a review article is like a big container with water sourced from different places! We all need sources of water in the first place; storing it is always secondary! Thanks

To me a review now called state of the art article gives the overview of up-to-date work done in on a specific subject mater. It also generates futuristic ideas to solve the current unresolved issues. A research article tries to solve a particular problem raised in that review. Reviews give depth of understanding however, a research article the technical scientfic skill.

Research and review articles are very important, and it is extremely important to have them both on your resume. First you have to do research, and publish at least 3 papers in your field to become a „a player“. Then you write a review article, NOT to review the literature, but to organize the literature and the filed in a specific way that reflects your ability to think, and to present yourself as a visionary and a leader!

Writing a review without research or before research article is almost useless, since nobody will take you as a visionary if you did not show that you can actually do something. Sometimes people write a review with senior scientist as a coauthor. That could mean something, since that says that the senior author had some confidence in the junior author (which can be quite an honor if the senior author is a big name).

Finally, if you have research papers, but you do not have a review paper, that shows that you are not able to be a visionary, you do not have an ambition to show yourself as a visionary. Nobody wants to hire a postdoc, or a junior faculty member if such person can do nothing more than a job of a technician.

I personally love to write a review article, once my research articles are out. The research articles report just data, and all journals have page restrictions. The review articles give you a chance to be “a PhD”, not just “to have a PhD”. The review articles give a chance to run out from a shadow of your mentors.

Good luck in your research folks!

In data we trust.

Thanks Zeljko for your interesting thoughts and I think many people from this discussion would like and agree to your point. This discussion provided so far "nice taste" from Syefuddin, "pure water" from Vageeshbabu and “a PhD” from you :D

I expect more of such interesting views and thoughts to the topic of discussion!

Review article is the compilation/overview of the background research in the relevant area, whereas a research article comprises of brief introduction, methodology and expression of results with relevant discussion concomitant with 'Concluding Remarks'. I think they are equally important from the point of scientific literature.

1) If we talk about systematic review Vs Descriptive review Vs Original research...according to Evidence Based Medicine Pyramid Systematic review holds upper place than other descriptive reviews and original research articles...

2)Other factor what contributes to the impact is the Impact factor of the journal in which your article is published...

Review is generally a broad discussion on a specific (or broad) topic, whereas article is expected to be more specific in content.

Original articles are always expected from young scholars, scientists, researchers and academicians.For any faculty, original articles are appreciated. Review articles needs more extensive study as well as analysis of previous study for giving a good outcome. Review articles should be prepared by well experienced researchers with vast knowledge of the subject. Original articles give high impact if they come from basic science research. New and innovative ideas leading to research articles always give better recognition to researcher in scientific community.

Dear Satyendra,

It's absolutely right. Young scholars, scientists and academicians should accept it and proceed accordingly.

An interesting discussion. I agree with most of the discussion that the original articles are more appreciated and that is what the junior investigators need to focus more on and on the other hand, the reviews carry more weight if they are written by the senior investigators.

The modern systematic reviews & meta-analyses, which are products of a team effort comprising senior and junior investigators and people with wide range of expertise are considered equivalent to original research.

Review articles that are insightful and well-written, particularly if they are published in highly regarded journals, can raise your profile in a field and do enhance your CV. But its a question of balance. If your output is too heavily skewed towards reviews, as opposed to primary research articles, then this could be seen as a negative. A healthy mix of both is viewed positively. If you have published quite a few primary papers in a field, it can be very worthwhile to summarize your views and put them into context with the literature in your field in a concise and thoughtful review article. The process of writing a review can also be very educational for the author, as it can very often force you to organize your thoughts in a way that often generates many new ideas for your future work. Reviews that are a jumble of information or merely archival are not very useful and will be very unlikely to be accepted by a high quality journal. There is only one thing worse than getting asked to write reviews, not getting asked to write them!

I certainly agree with the explanations given by the previous fellows. In my view I prefer the research papers mainly in a young scientist than a review paper. The review papers require indeed a big amount of work and also several research papers of whom is writing. When I was a young I always reject the idea of writing reviews as I was more enthusiastic in obtaining results to publish. As already mentioned the impact depends also on who is writing and where is going to be published. My advise is get results and publish them

From all the answers, I think this is a very valid point every young researcher should remember that though writing a review article takes lot of efforts, one should not just keep writing it to increase one's number of publications, because at the end, the quality of original research you perform matters in early stages.

Certainly original research work carry more more weight and is an "original contribution" and shows how the person has analyzed the problem and tried to solve it .

However the review article is an important contribution to the scientific community where in all scientific work carried out on that area is summarized and saves a lot of time of the other people working on same problem.

Increasing the number of publications by just adding few reviews to me is not an impressive work .

Like many stated both research articles and review articles have their own importance and place in the field of science. The research articles are a problem/ idea centric while review articles deal with analysis of findings published in that particular field and provide directions for feature research. It is not that important from whom the review came but what it contains is matters more. A healthy balance between research articles and review articles always desired in ones career.

i think it's one way for collection of important data base for writing reference

Both are important especially if you write review paper in your field of study. In general, you get more citation from your review paper. That will increase your H-index.

I think that question was answered of exhaustive form. If an author have a review article and a reserch article he can send both for publication. The decision about publication depend of the editorial board of the journal. The opinion of colleagues don't have influence in this decision. A good work in a important journal is the essential.

The value of original investigative papers is that they provide new data to test and/or refute existing models within a field. They also demonstrate that the author can start with a question, formulate it into a testable hypothesis, perform the experiments and analyse the results and, hopefully, shed new light on a problem. This type of paper is essential in demonstrating that you could get grants/funding to support your future independent work. A review article is more for the purpose of clarifying the status of knowledge in an area of a field in which you have become expert through your original publications. Both have their places, but for a young investigator, the original research is the most important in convincing those who might hire you to become one of their peers that you can contribute original work and perhaps collaborate with them in joint research interests. The review papers do not demonstrate that you are a master of laboratory technique. Nevertheless, if you have mathematical strengths and can reanalyze other people's data to come to new conclusions, this can be very valuable and the resulting papers would be original research papers, not reviews.

Systematic review's article is very important in decision making on Standardization of medicines, in the buying process, as it lists all clinical test items and provides the meta-analysis are given this medicine is or is not better than another.The empirical study is the result found in given sample in real conditions being of great value therefore, both studies are of relevance which will depend on your application context.

Stepping back from the purely mercenary reasons for writing scientific publications for a moment, think about writing a review article as a service to the scientific community for which it is relevant. Usually, one is not asked to write a review article unless one is recognized as a comprehensive expert in a topical area. Although a review article does not typically contain much (or any) in the way of new findings, it is a significant scholarly contribution and contextualization of extant data that only an expert can provide. Consider yourself fortunate to have the opportunity to write a review. But as others have said, reviews are clearly not substitute for original work.

Thanks for your advice!

Some contributors have mentioned meta-analysis as review. This is not necessarily the case. Meta-analysis involves the reanalysis of published data from several papers as a new analysis. This can lead to erroneous conclusions since a small positive study is likely to be published while a small negative study, particularly if under powered statistically, is unlikely to get published. Hence there is a bias in the literature for positive results data (typically, alpha = 0.05, beta = 0.80). A review, on the other hand, considers a critical analysis of what is thought in the field, on what these views are based, which have strong foundations and which are weak. It may also show new directions of needed research. The most valuable reviews show where generally held assumptions in the field are incorrect and suggests possible alternative models to be investigated.

If I am allowed to add my opinion, I would say that before being asked to write a review or a book, for that matter, about a certain topic you must be considered by members of the scientific community very knowledgeable in that area. How do you become an expert in that specific area?: by carrying out original research work of a certain high standard - and publishing (a significant number !) of scientific contributions in the journals relevant. Hence, both are interrelated!

Therefore, I couldn't agree more with Roger Rowlett in his statement that "usually, one is not asked to write a review article unless one is recognized as a comprehensive expert in a topical area".

While new publications and patent literature in a certain area are very valuable for their novelty aspect, well-written critical reviews where the reviewer is not scared to point out, from his own point of view and his overall experience in the subject, at strengths and weaknesses of existing publications can be of tremendous value, as a summary of what has been done thus far and as a guide for the future, particularly for younger researchers, who can use well written reviews as a foundation for their own future efforts.

A final point: A review may also be of great importance for the reviewer himself: During writing and critically evaluating other people' original work, the reviewer may get important inputs and draw significant conclusions for his own research work.

A review is on a specific field and focused on that particular subject. Best review is written by a person who is expert in that particular subject and has done significant work in a particular field. A review article can provide excellent learning as we get collection of several research publications in the same article. There is a lot of learning from an excellent review.

Research article carries a lot of value and merit if the concept is original and ultimately at some stage something beneficial will come out from a good research. In my opinion, research publication carries more value.

I agree strongly with Christopher Lange - a review which causes a reappraisal of a paradigm and rejection of a dated hypothesis could be as important as an original research paper, and is clear evidence of your ability to think as a scientist. A wider-ranging review is beneficial to your career in the longer-term as it will raise your profile and will likely receive more citations than your original science, but a PI will always want researchers with proven track record of actual research, i.e. original papers.

I believe that the question has different answers according to the age and the academic level of the researcher. When you are young and searching jobs, having written research papers helps a lot to show your practical knowledge and expertise in the scientific field. having a good background of research papers legitimate you to write reviews (or being asked to write) because you want to summarize and critically discuss your results compared to the entire field of interest. This is important at present, when many journals are asking for concise papers and limited the number of references. In a review you have normally more space and no limitation of the references. Both research and review articles are interconnected and complete your CV.

I agree with Jose Jacob that both review as well as research article carries value. It is important which journal article is published.

Review article just take information from all kind of text such as text book, journal, and also Holly Book from God by reading sentence or word but the problem is objective versus subjective

Original article just take information from fact, event, action and also Behavior of Creation (natural and social event) and Creator (GOD as the highest spiritual power) by measuring phenomenon using qualitative approach or quantitative approach from descriptive purposes only to analysis or predictive result but the problem is relative (relativity) versus absolute (absolutivity)

Original article in Science just report of relativity in natural and social event getting by research (the way how to make "interrogation" to the fact to expose all existing by using sensory organ) but original article in Religion is only revelation given by God and accept by conviction (faith) only by using spiritual sense beyond the sensory organ

Thanks for raising this issue. I believe that you are what you write. As clinician with significant academic interest, I maintain that I should publish a scope of at least the following articles; research papers, systematic reviews including the meta-analysis or evidence based reviews and clinical case reports. Authors with only research papers may indicate their limited experience and their contribution in their field. The research papers can be readily written by junior staff or those with very limited clinical exposure and are associated with plagiarism of ideas and methodology as many authors may try what other people tried but different cohorts. On other hand , both case reports and reviews are the platforms for authors to share their experience and to express views with readers and usually have better and long lasting impact.

I think an original article is much more important than a review article. However, it is undeniable that, depending on the area, the review article is much cited.

A more cynical point of view is that review papers usually get more citings than an original research paper, thus increasing your number of citations. In some contexts this matters (when applying for a position, bibliometric evaluation is part of the process for hiring someone at most universities). That you've written a review also gives a hint that you have expertise knowledge in your field. But of course, it is important that you publish original research, and this is often required for you to be able to write a proper review article.

It depends on the need of the field. If you feel that in your research area, on a selected topic there is a need of review which will be useful to the new researchers entering field, you could write one. Of course writing a review article will help you in getting reputation and more citations. If one can write a review article, definitely it will add strength to the CV. I think if one wants to evaluate our contribution to the field of Science and Technology, they look at our focused research articles and they add more strength than the review articles.

The form this question takes highlights a shortcoming in the way science is currently undertaken.

The trouble with the question is that it separates two things that should really be united. Like the philosopher Isaiah Berlin's Hedgehog and the Fox, many researchers only know one thing, whereas reviewers know many things.

A review that systematically analyses a field, in which there is confusion and contradiction, in such a way that new avenues of research are opened may itself constitute a considerable original contribution to research.

Science cannot progress without theories, and this requires the opportunity to look beyond the immediate constraints of a particular niche within a larger field, or fields.

Many of the answers already given to this question indicate the current bias and tyranny working against this in science, that is created both by journals, with their space and reference constraints, that are unnecessary and outdated in an "online" era, and by work that is primarily career led, rather than focussed on problem solving.

Incidentally, it is a fact that many distinguished journals also limit review papers quite severely both as to word and reference limit. Where a field is large and/or neglected, this too constitutes an obstacle to good scientific analysis.

It is not necessary that review article is cited more than research paper. An original research paper is more valuable contribution and may have much more citation provided it is an original idea with beneficial to suffering humanity. It can not be denied that a well written review article will be useful in a specific field and may have significant citation if published in high impact factor journal.

In my opinion the concept is completely different. If you are writing original articles you are creating new knowledge.... and when applying for a position you demonstrate your ability as a researcher. When you are writing a review article, you demonstrate your ability as a "journalist" in science.... but not necessary your abilities as a researcher. For a young investigator I appreciate more original articles.

I agree with Carmen that the obsession with impact factors and citation rates are not helpful to the progress of science, or necessarily helpful for professional development. It's really not meaningful to think of research articles or reviews as "better" than the other because they are different ways of contributing to the scientific enterprise. A scholar, especially and established one, should be able to contribute both the the discipline. Science would be better served if scientists concentrated on conducting and communicating good, original, and significant science to their peers and the public, rather than focusing on getting a slightly higher citation count or impact factor. Not everything important is published in Cell or Nature or Science. I've run or participated in probably a dozen or more job searches, and I don't think we ever discussed impact factors or citation counts. NSF panels don't do this either. Just publish good stuff somewhere where it is seriously peer-reviewed and read. That will take you a long way.

From my point of view, it´s better for your academic career to publish high-quality original research. People evaluating your resume for an application or a grant will review it as a whole, looking for a line of research. A good review is a consequence of the knowledge acquired through this research, and a balanced resume consists of a consistent core of original papers, and a few reviews (preferably on the same topic) and case reports.

for the first step, actually you are what you read and by making a review article someone will need more reading to read in the form of text and by making original article someone want to "read" the context guided by previous text and finally convert to become text again.

The both output are equal in the form of text but the impact is different and this become second step that you are what you write and depends on what you record and what way to express.

Because all of you are unique as individual so the more specific and unique of your text the more quality and the more impact of your text

The discussions in this reference are quite interesting and widely acceptable at my end.

Finally, I reach to conclusion that young researchers should not get confused in this regard. At initial stage they should work on communicating original research article rather than a review article.

In my view, good and quality research work cannot be compared to a reviewed work irrespective of the number of citations of the reviewed work, although a good review work would also assist and go a long way just like any original research work to impact positively into our world. I think on this note, a more acceptable position should be taken generally to really acertain the placement of review work and a research work.

I personnally think all the answers are particularly limited because they only adopt the point of view of searchers. Shiould it be a manifestation of some incapacity of searchers to leave their "ivory tout" ? What about clinicians and beginners (clinicians or searchers) who need for several reasons to enter a field they are not familiar with ? They can find in review papers something like a "state of the art",although they have to read more than one review paper. It can also be usefull for young docents to read such papers in a way to have a overview of a problem. Of course, authors of review papers, according to me, must be experienced seniors with a large view on the problem they are discussing. And they not only have to make a summary of the results recently published. They have to make some comments inspired by their own knowledge znd experience. Otherwise, this is no "review", this is journalism, and this is not their job.

In my view a review should not exhaustively put together existing knowledge but instead should make reserachers aware of recent developments of a certain research field. More importantly, it should focus on discrepancies in literature, gaps in knowledge, and recommendations for the future. Thus a review writer should not only dig in all the literature of the review topic, instead should intriniscally be on top of that topic carrying a lot of experience in that field. This expertness should be the way to be able to write more challenging for scientists to design experiments to fill gaps or controversies in the field, and beyond to make a more scholar text to attract scientists from related fields. Good authorative reviews are highly cited, and I would see the appearance of such a review as positive especially for tenure track position vacancies.

I think original article is always one its value than review article,

Prof N Nagaraju, St Josephs College, Bangalore

Though publication of original research articles shows ones research abilities, for a beginner, in research writing a review article in a selected area of his/her research definitely shows the students ability to understand the topic and extend to his research work. Thus one should give due credit to the student who has published a review article in the beginning of his research career.

I do agree with the statement of Dr. Ilknur Icke. In fact, a Ph.D. scholar is expected to survey background literature and write-up an overview in his/her own language, which certainly provides a platform to frame 'Aims and Objectives' of the proposal prior to start the program towards original work.

From my mentors, I have known that a review is an ocean from which one has to find his drop of research for Ph.D. So writing review was mandatory to do research.

Great. It is a fact. I hope you would have received a prefect training from your Ph.D. supervisor, and hopefully you may be enjoying your future research career.

This answer of Ramesh explains a bit the confusing mix of answers. I think a review should show how senior/mature/established you are on a topic. In my view a starting research type of review has no added value for the scientific community. It can be a good start for a beginning scientist but should in general be used as internal piece of work and not submitted to journals.

Publishing review article in referred journal above 5 impact factor will surely have quality and equally consider as a good paper. Secondly citation of paper is important criteria.

For applying fellowship, they ask your total impact factor point, so there it doesn't matter whether you have published review or original research article.

I do agree with Dr. Inder Makhija. After group discussion the ultimate extract we have obtained.

One person must have an opinion on something to follow discussion in any kind of field such as medicine, mathematics, economics and also religion whether it was his original idea by his experience after practicing or after making observation in daily activity and reality or refer to the other opinions directly and even doing combination of several opinions become synthesis from thesis and antithesis of the various opinions of others (as a result of review of other ideas). In term of science community, research and its publication as original article has become a report of trial with valid and reliable methodology to measure the reality of ideality (as justification) in a certain context and then become a view in text format with new justification based on new evident. According to process sequence approach, Research will be conducted after reviewing some article if you are researcher not only as a “journalist” of science and after finishing the research will produce new view as original article with new evident in certain context and become new reference for other person as a “journalist of science” to make review and surely for reviewer board. Review article for student and expert is like a front door or gate to make original article and original article for expert or student as new data to make recent good review. So we are now still practicing to express original view and respond to other view by collecting all views to become review of our view in this discussion but in reality we did not know actually the fact the difference impact of review article and original article because research have not done yet. Then research is still much more important than review in this case of discussion