【How to Write】Give commentaries on previous studies

After reviewing and citing some previous studies highly related to your research, the next step is to give your commentaries on them. This is not only to summarise what they have done and found but also to tell your readers that there is a problem or a knowledge gap in the field. That preliminarily provides rationales for your paper.

Remember, be neutral about all studies cited. It may just take two or three sentences in your paper, but it can affect the impression that you give to reviewers and editors. Here are three sentence patterns that you can use.

The majority of research on/in...... has focused on......

e.g., The majority of research on digital transformation in higher education has focused on the hardware and software equipped on campuses.

There is no general consensus on......

e.g., There is no general consensus on how teachers can acquire digital literacy effectively and how to evaluate their teaching quality in a hybrid learning context.

Some......, and/but some......

e.g., Some studies found the positive effects of gamification strategies on adult language learning, but some reported critical issues at the same time.