How do I choose a topic worth writing a review article on?

So that we do not do the work for nothing, and the review actually gets published, I suggest choosing a topic with the following features.

A field where you already have a record

Suppose you write a review of current drug treatments for a skin disease in dogs. The topic is interesting, but during review the editor or reviewers see that you have never published in this field. They worry that, however careful you were, you may not have captured the field accurately, and acceptance becomes hard.

You may ask: isn't review blind? Can they see my information?

The editor certainly knows who you are, and the reviewers quite possibly do too. Peer review is not usually double-blind; single-blind review is common, meaning you do not know who reviews you, but the reviewers know who you are.

This is because the academic world generally believes that the world is large and someone is always faking. If we looked only at the work itself, we could easily be dazzled by a very interesting result. Knowing who you are, what you have done, where you work and which group you belong to gives them a little more confidence in accepting the paper.

A topic residents would want to download as soon as they see the title

This means the topic is interesting and practical, and highly attractive to peers. High attraction means more readers, and later more citations. Journals care most about influence and the impact factor. A topic that peers like at first sight is a good topic for a review.

A field where you have your own distinctive insight

You have strong views on where the field is going, perhaps even your own classification or way of seeing it, and when you share it with peers, they find it fresh. Such original insight is the brightest value of a review.

Following these criteria, I have written quite a few reviews. Two of them, "CT-guided core biopsy of lung lesions: a primer" (AJR, 2009) and "Neonatal cardiac multidetector row CT: why and how we do it" (Pediatric Radiology, 2008), have each been cited more than 100 times on Google Scholar (as of 2026). If you are interested, look them up online and use them to think about how to develop your own topic.