Just finished writing my first ever review paper for a journal. Oh God.. I never realized writing a review will be soooo very difficult. It's SO MUCH MORE harder than writing your own research paper.
When you write a review, you have to read pretty much all the papers and be absolutely up-to-date with the literature. Usually if you read just one paper in a particular topic, then you are very likely to paraphrase/plagiarize what's written in it. And since that's a STRICTT NO-NO and considered highly unethical by the scientific community, you must read multiple papers in the topic just to broaden your perspective and to give you a clear understanding of the subject and matter. And then when you sit down to write after reading everything, you are so lost and confused that you need to start re-reading again! I had this problem a LOT. So for several days, I was glued to my laptop for hours at a stretch. And at the end of 4-5 hours of paper chasing and reading (and of course multi-tasking off and on.. ahem!)..I could finally write for less than a half hour before packing up for the day!
I always thought writing your own research paper was harder, especially when you have to make sense and beautifully package all those years of good and junk data! But this experience proved me wrong.
I'm satisfied with the outcome... mebbe because I haven't heard the prof's verdict and seen those red marks yet!! but still, a pretty tuff first-time experience its been for me!
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