Should I write a literature review

[FailureToThrive]

Can't find any research this summer, should I write a literature review on a topic that interests me and send it to researchers to prove my competence and/or give them something that can be quickly edited/worked on and eventually published?

Kind of a shitpost but also kinda serious. Getting pretty desperate. 

[Oussedik]

Do you have a specific topic in mind? If you have a specific topic in mind, consider sending an email to someone in the field and express your interest in writing a literature review with them. If they agree, share with them an outline of the paper. Then put it together and you two can go back and forth on edits.

[Bambi]

6 hours ago, MD_2021 said:

Can't find any research this summer, should I write a literature review on a topic that interests me and send it to researchers to prove my competence and/or give them something that can be quickly edited/worked on and eventually published?

Kind of a shitpost but also kinda serious. Getting pretty desperate. 

I did a literature review of a topic that interested me, took 3 weeks one summer, got it published.

[Oussedik]

4 hours ago, Bambi said:

I did a literature review of a topic that interested me, took 3 weeks one summer, got it published.

Were you the sole author on the paper as a medical student? Did you get it published in a Pubmed-indexed journal?

[Eudaimonia]

This is an interesting method you propose and I commend you for thinking outside the box. Before you embark on the task, I wanted to tell you what I know about reviews from researcher's point of view. 

In brute honesty, most PIs are not interested in reviews. They are not as valuable to have on their CV as research articles. However, you will be demonstrating great initiative and motivation, and if you write from a very good critical angle, it can also show the PI how you think about these research problems. If you offer to have one ready for them to publish, you/they also need to decide on a suitable journal to submit to. Some journals have calls for reviews on particular topics so if you come forward with that opportunity and a topic of interest, it might be better received by the PI. 

What I'm trying to say is that PIs look for students with great interest in their field and I think you're able to show that. Reflecting on your research pursuits so far, why do you think you've been unsuccessful? Is your GPA the issue?