Chapter 2 · Practice 1 of 3
Organise the review by theme, not by paper
Why it matters
Group related work under themes that match your problem. For a medicine expiry tracking project, the themes might be:
- Inventory systems for small retailers.
- Expiry and batch tracking in pharmacies.
- Demand forecasting for perishable stock.
- Usability of business apps for non-technical users.
Under each theme, discuss several works together: what approaches exist, where they agree, where they differ and what none of them handles. This reads as an argument rather than a catalogue, and it leads naturally to the gap your project fills.
Research projects may be asked for a per-item structure instead. FAST's R&D format asks, for each research item, for a summary, a critical analysis of strengths and weaknesses, and its relationship to the proposed work. Follow your format, but keep the comparison visible either way.
Do
- Group works under three to five themes
- End each theme with what is still missing
Avoid
- One paragraph per paper with no links between them