One component of my Disease Ecology course for advanced undergraduates and graduate students is a group literature review on a focused topic. Students work in small groups, and each group writes a section on a different subtopic. Students learn to define the topic, scope, and target journal for a review; perform targeted literature searches; critically analyze and synthesize literature search results; identify theoretical and empirical gaps in existing literature; apply the mechanics of writing a collaborative manuscript; summarize the completed manuscript through visual abstracts and science writing for the general public; and provide constructive feedback on peers’ writing.
