Writing a literature review requires a somewhat different set of skills than writing an empirical research article. Indeed, some people who are very good at writing empirical research reports are not skilled at composing review papers. What are the characteristics that differentiate literature reviews that are likely to be published and make a difference from those that are difficult to publish and make a limited contribution?

I have been thinking about this topic quite a lot recently. As the current editor of Psychological Bulletin, the literature review journal of the American Psychological Association, I constantly deal with the issue of evaluating review papers. I had written a number of literature reviews myself prior to becoming editor; however, in the process of editing the journal I have had to consolidate what were vague, sometimes unverbalized cognitions regarding the properties of an excellent review into criteria for guiding editorial decisions.

Before writing this chapter, I started to outline my recommendations. As a last step before beginning to write, I read a similar paper written by Daryl Bem that was published in Psychological Bulletin in 1995. I was surprised at how similar Bem's and my ideas were; sometimes he even used the same words that I have used when talking about writing reviews to groups at conferences and to my students. Based on this similarity, one could conclude either that great minds think alike or that there is considerable interrater reliability between people who have been editors about what constitutes a high-quality review paper.