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Title: Mastering the Challenge: Crafting a Comprehensive Literature Review

Crafting a literature review is an indispensable component of academic research, particularly in


disciplines like the social sciences, humanities, and even in some scientific fields. Among the various
types of literature reviews, a systematic literature review stands out for its rigorous methodology and
comprehensive approach to synthesizing existing research. However, delving into the world of
systematic literature reviews can prove to be a daunting task for many researchers.

Systematic literature reviews require meticulous planning, exhaustive searching, critical evaluation,
and synthesis of relevant literature on a particular topic or research question. The process involves
defining clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, systematically searching multiple databases and other
sources for relevant studies, and meticulously screening and selecting studies based on predefined
criteria.

One of the key challenges researchers encounter when writing a systematic literature review is the
sheer volume of available literature. Sorting through numerous articles, books, and other sources can
be overwhelming and time-consuming. Moreover, ensuring the inclusion of all relevant studies while
avoiding bias requires careful attention to detail and a thorough understanding of the research topic.

Additionally, synthesizing the findings of selected studies in a coherent and meaningful way presents
another hurdle. Researchers must analyze and interpret the data from various studies, identify
patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing literature, and provide insightful conclusions that contribute
to the body of knowledge in their field.

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Download figure Open in new tab Download powerpoint Flow chart for the inclusion and exclusion
of appraisal tools for non-randomised studies of interventions Characteristics of appraisal tools As
shown in table 1, 18 (37%) tools were published between 2002 and 2010, while 31 (63%) tools were
published thereafter. Many discussions of systematic reviews acknowledge the iterative nature of
such undertakings (e.g. Liberati et al. 2009; Tranfield et al. 2003; Pino et al. 2008; Pawson et al.
2005 ) and we advise that protocols for systematic reviews in LCA and any associated meta-analysis
methods be trialed for usability by the study group, reviewed, discussed, and revised as indicated
during the course of the review. You can always check our plagiarism score before submitting your
work to help ease your mind. The respective tools with sufficient descriptions included SURE, 45
ROBINS-I, 18 MINORS, 28 CER-CI, 30 GRACE 17 and the tools described by Faillie et al. 29
The Data quality domain was ignored by most tools, as 4 of the 10 relevant items were sufficiently
addressed by less than three tools. To provide as a background to position new research activities. As
the review progresses, this detail may be replaced by standardized description of PICO
characteristics (e.g. the coding of counselling interventions presented in Table 9.3.a ). Table 9.3.b
illustrates one approach to tabulating study characteristics to enable comparison and analysis across
studies. Deciding on the best approach will depend on the purpose of the table and the stage of the
review. In order to identify candidate principles, each code was investi-. While the template
provides a general structure, you should adapt it to fit the specific requirements and focus of your
literature review. Potential strengths of the overall body of evidence that might apply for a particular
outcome of a systematic review include: a large effect (example 8a); demonstration of a dose-
response relationship (example 10a, below); and that all biases would be likely to reduce the effect
rather than increase it. From Lab to Literature: Exploring the Roadblocks Physicians Navigate in
Publishing Their Research Levels of evidence-based medicine in mass gathering public health and
emergency medicine literature review A clinical literature review of effective supervision in clinical
practice settings Comments are closed. The quality of any review or meta-analysis is dependent on
the individual studies upon which it is built. If potentially relevant studies are identified that have
not previously been assessed for inclusion, authors or those managing the updating process need to
assess whether including them might affect the conclusions of the review. In the event, consensus
was reached, and the annex was not required. Many investigators will register their protocols in
PROSPERO, a registry of review protocols. Retrieved from summer2007.pdf Hairston, C. F. (2007).
Focus on children with incarcerated parents: An overview of the research literature. Different dosage
schedules for reducing cardiotoxicity in people with cancer receiving anthracycline chemotherapy. It
includes multiple pieces of data derived from both quantitative and qualitative data analysis in
systematic reviews. New approaches to publishing licences could help new authors build on and re-
use the previous edition while giving appropriate credit to the previous authors. Accumulative
experience and methods development in reviews other than those of effects are likely to help refine
guidance in the future. This template is for the write-up of the actual literature review chapter,
whereas the catalog is for use during the literature sourcing and sorting phase. Agree with manuscript
results and conclusions: EMB PPG DGA SH HB IC PCG TL DT. Turn recording back on Connect
with NLM National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894 Web Policies
FOIA HHS Vulnerability Disclosure Help Accessibility Careers What’s Included: Literature Review
Template This template is structure is based on the tried and trusted best-practice format for formal
academic research projects such as dissertations and theses. Eligibility criteria for reports may also
include the language of publication, the publication status (e.g., whether to include unpublished
materials and abstracts) and the year of publication (example 3d). Search filters are sets of search
terms chosen to restrict a search to a selection of references, such as articles based on method or
study type. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science Shojania K, Sampson M, Ansari M, et al.
Preregistration gives other researchers confidence that the team is not selectively choosing
advantageous results at the end to make an interesting paper. PRISMA for Abstracts: Reporting
Systematic Reviews in Journal and The PRISMA for Abstracts checklist gives authors a framework
for condensing their systematic review into the essentials for an abstract that will meet the needs of
many readers.. Identify the report as a systematic review, meta-analysis, or both.. Hartley J (2000)
Clarifying the abstracts of systematic literature reviews. For example, the ROBINS-I tool was
developed from the Cochrane Risk Of Bias Assessment Tool: for Non-Randomized Studies of
Interventions (ACROBAT-NRSI), 53 and some of their signalling questions differed. Preparing and
updating systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health care.
We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. The
main components of a literature review are overview, techniques, discussion, conclusion, and
bibliography. Describe the rationale for the review in the context of existing knowledge. Literature
reviews don’t have to follow such rigid methods or make the methods explicit. Always cite your
sources correctly and paraphrase ideas in your own words while maintaining the original meaning.
Sitemap case study cover letter creative writing presentation problem solving rewiew prompts
websites tips. Tabulating characteristics of studies that contribute to each comparison can also help to
improve the transparency of decisions made around grouping of studies, while also ensuring that
studies that do not contribute to the combined effect are accounted for. 9.4 Checking data before
synthesis Before embarking on a synthesis, it is important to be confident that the findings from the
individual studies have been collated correctly. Indeed, for readers who do not understand the
language of publication of the article, the translated abstract may have far more relevance than the
full-text article. They are often collaborative and tag, for instance, inclusion- and exclusion criteria.
JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. ed. Adelaide: JBI; 2020. Rather than examining the topic itself,
historiography is the study of how historical topics have been examined over time by other historians.
Both quality checklist and review data can be included in the same. They wanted to develop a
process which became complete and replicable - providing the methodology was consistent (Lavallee
et al., 2014). They developed a process which they have named iterative systematic review (iSR),
and have chunked down the approach to the literature review into eight tasks (Lavallee et al., 2014,
p. 175-6). If you want to see how this automatic mapping works you can do a search without
choosing a specific field, and then go to History and Search Details (on the Advanced page). The
standardized technique for assessing and reporting reviews of LCA (STARR-LCA) checklist is a
starting point for improving the utility of systematic reviews in LCA. Patient Safety and Quality: An
Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. Population (P) - the target group for the investigation (e.g.
Therefore, and to use peer reviewers’ time most effectively, editors need to consider when to peer
review an update and the type of peer reviewer most useful for a particular update (for example,
topic specialist, methodologist). Meta-analysis: A melding of data from multiple studies, usually
involving additional mathematical analyses, with the goal of utilizing this synergy of information
and data size to answer questions that cannot be answered by existing individual studies or to
improve the certainty or impact of known findings by increasing the sample size. PDF Five tips for
developing useful literature summary tables for writing Literature summary tables are not only meant
to provide an overview of basic information (authors, country, purpose and findings) about included
articles, but they should also provide detailed information about the theo-retical and conceptual
frameworks and the methods used in the included article. A diagram illustrating how the three
approaches complemented each other is shown in online supplemental appendix 1. For investigators,
whether they are considering publishing a systematic review or consulting them for practice, it’s
important to know how to evaluate the search methods. The management of authorship between
versions can sometimes be complicated. TL is an editor (unpaid) for the Cochrane Airways Group. A
systematic review is guided filtering and synthesis of all available evidence addressing a specific,
focused research question, generally about a specific intervention or exposure. Population: software
OR application OR product OR Web OR WWW. OR Agile, scrum, extreme programming, lean,
crystal clear, feature driven development, dynamic software development. Review authors and
commissioners can use a decision framework and checklist to navigate and report these decisions
with “update status” and rationale for this status. It is also easier to structure comprehensive and
advanced search strategies, and to edit search strategies. However, assessing variation in LCA data
sources, such as LCA databases, can carry additional challenges given the frequent lack of
uncertainty estimates.
Quality evidence-based practice initiatives and nursing care and medicine are based on
understanding and evaluating the resources and research available, identifying gaps, and building a
strong foundation for future work. Qualitative and mixed methods in systematic reviews.
Proceedings of the 5th ACM conference on Bioinformatics, computational biology, and health
informatics. 2014:88-95.. ? Elliott JH, Turner T, Clavisi O, et al. Also there may be other 'Instructions
to Authors' provided by the journals or organisations in which you plan to publish. As a student you
should rather do a structured literature review, including only certain aspects of the methodology
described on this page. Citations for the examples of good reporting are in Table 2. While they
addressed less than half of quality items defined in our research, they were proven robust in many
studies. 14 Additionally, for several quality items we found some heterogeneity in content of
signalling questions or criteria among the tools with sufficient description. Sitemap case study cover
letter creative writing presentation problem solving rewiew prompts websites tips. Funding: This
research was supported (in part) by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Center for
Biotechnology Information (National Library of Medicine). Consequently, the most up-to-date
version of a tool might be missing, and the extent to which a quality item was described by a tool
might be underestimated. Turn recording back on Connect with NLM National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894 Web Policies FOIA HHS Vulnerability Disclosure Help
Accessibility Careers What’s Included: Literature Review Template This template is structure is
based on the tried and trusted best-practice format for formal academic research projects such as
dissertations and theses. Institute for Enterprise Systems, University of Mannheim, L 15, 1-6, 68131
Mannheim, Germany. For permission to re-use material from the Handbook (either academic or
commercial), please see here for full details. Reduced osmolarity oral rehydration solution for treating
dehydration caused by acute diarrhoea in children. How-to conduct a systematic literature review: A
quick guide for Abstract. Ultimately, this study proposes a twelve-item LR checklist. A grade of the
overall quality of the body of evidence for each outcome (which may vary by outcome). Hands
down to their expert consultation and guidance. Reporting the findings of updated systematic
reviews of comparative effectiveness: how do users want to view new information. GRADE
(Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations) is a transparent
framework for presenting summaries of evidence. (PDF) Five tips for developing useful literature
summary tables for Data were extracted using the summary tables in Excel. Primary research
methods include interviews, internet surveys, and focus groups. Guidelines are mentioned in this
blog provide a good outline for conducting a systematic review of the literature. 3. This framework
especially is essential for early career researchers and medical students to enhance their writing
knowledge on the systematic review of the literature. Few titles will entice a reader to invest
additional time, but when they do, they ordinarily start—and quite often end—with the abstract.
Which study when? Proof of concept of a proposed automated tool to help decision which reviews
to update first. The abstract should make clear the protocol-defined, pre-specified importance of each
outcome reported, and should not report only those outcomes that have statistically significant or
clinically important results. Based largely on the 2009 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic
reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement, which updated the preferred format for reporting
of such reviews in biomedical research, we provide an introduction to the topic and a checklist to
guide the reporting of future LCA reviews in a standardized format. In this example, 141 were
people assigned to the intervention group in Study A. UCASD. Overall, as listed in Table 5, four
codes from our coding sys-. You can see a more complete list of options in the Systematic Review
Toolbox. Overview of the 4 domains and 26 quality items, with numbers and proportions of appraisal
tools that addressed or sufficiently described them Figure 2 illustrates whether and to what extent
the identified tools addressed quality items in terms of methodological quality or reporting.
To see which publications that have cited these articles, click on Citation Report, which you’ll find
on the right side of the search box. This strategy is particularly valuable when matching data from
several studies addressing similar questions, usually, quite specific experimental questions, such as
”Does a rational-emotional therapy intervention promote well-being in patients who are considered
emotionally distressing?”. Consult your library subject guide to review databases appropriate for
your topic. The cleanly-formatted Google Doc can be downloaded as a fully editable MS Word
Document (DOCX format), so you can use it as-is or convert it to LaTeX. Abbreviations Preferred
Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Preferred Reporting Items for
Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews Preferred Reporting Items
for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols Systematic reviews Moher D, Liberati A,
Tetzlaff J, Altman DG. But sometimes, it pays to let someone else do the work for you. Authors who
address questions on aetiology, diagnostic test accuracy, or prognosis may need to modify items or
include other items in their abstract to reflect the essentials of the full report. However, some might
perceive that their efforts in the first version warrant continued authorship, which may be valid.
Their objective is to synthesize evidence through meta-analysis, a type of SLR that employs
statistical analyses. A population-based, multifaceted strategy to implement antenatal corticosteroid
treatment versus standard care for the reduction of neonatal mortality due to preterm birth in low-
income and middle-income countries: the ACT cluster-randomised trial. New information can also
include fresh follow-up data on existing included studies, or information on how the studies were
carried out. Terminology Literature review format Literature review topics and subtopics Locating
literature review sources Choosing appropriate sources Your opinion Bibliography format. Direction
of the effect (i.e., which group is favoured) and size of the effect in terms meaningful to patients and
clinicians. Rewrite the words within a parenthesis and write AB in front of the parenthesis. A
systematic review published in the Lancet examined the effects of artemisinin based combination
treatments compared with monotherapy for treating malaria and showed clear benefit. 21
Assessment: this established the treatment globally and is no longer a current question and no update
is required. Approaching literature review for academic purposes: The Literature Second, the paper
considers five steps for developing a review: defining the main topic, searching the literature,
analyzing the results, writing the review and reflecting on the writing. Corresponding author
Correspondence to Rafael Sarkis-Onofre. A report from a meeting of Experts jointly organized by
UNICEF and WHO. Strategic Publishing Guide Strategic publishing guide by DVC-R and the
Library Think Check Submit Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals for
their research. We sought to identify general approaches in this area, and not be specific to
Cochrane; although inevitably most of the panel were somehow engaged in Cochrane. Other tools
are specifically designed to help decision making in updating. Find additional examples of useful
tools at Systematic Review Toolbox. This question format can be further defined by adding relevant
parameters such as geographic region, technology type, or years of interest. How to create a matrix
of evidence in Epistemonikos. There are benefits and limitations to each method of data extraction.
Supplementary Guidance for Inclusion of Qualitative Research in Cochrane Systematic Reviews of
Interventions (Cochrane Collaboration Qualitative Methods Group) Look for an existing extraction
form or tool to help guide you. Data extraction by at least two reviewers is necessary to ensure inter-
rater reliability and prevent data entry errors. In addition, the research team formally assesses the
quality of each study, including the potential for bias, and these assessments are considered when the
results are synthesized. Unlike the narrative literature review, the systematic review enables the
definition of a methodological approach that will allow the answer to specific research questions.
Bias is a topic we will come to in a later chapter, but for now you can think of bias as anything that
systematically takes us away from the “truth”.
Importantly, both inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria must be clearly outlined when a systematic
review is undertaken. Data extraction and synthesis Two independent researchers searched, screened
and reviewed all included studies and tools, summarised quality items and scored whether and to
what extent a quality item was described by a tool, for either methodological quality or reporting.
They introduce readers to the surrounding literature while also situating your work within the larger
scholarly discussion on that topic. A Cochrane review of community deworming in developing
countries indicates that in recent studies, there is little or no effect. 50 The inclusion of a large trial
of two million children confirmed that there was no effect on mortality. If there are no summary
measures, some numerical data may still be given (example 7c), although authors should be wary of
making this in the form of “vote counting” where the number of “positive” and “negative” studies is
given. More broadly, synthesis of the PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparator and Outcome)
elements of the included studies underpins interpretation of review findings and is an important
output of the review in its own right. Process-based LCA, in which data are obtained based on
parameters of known, physically utilized components, can be further divided into attributional and
consequential types ( Finnveden et al. 2009 ). In contrast, input-output models are based on
economic inputs to a system, such as the EIOLCA model created by the Green Design Institute at
Carnegie Mellon University (2008). Their comments helped inform the emerging guidance. We also
use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. For example,
the direction of a standardized mean difference may accidentally be wrong in the review. Evidence
Synthesis: general term used to refer to any method of identifying, selecting, and combining results
from multiple studies. A close examination of study characteristics will require detailed tables; for
example, to identify differences in characteristics that were pre-specified as potentially important
modifiers of the intervention effects. Given a decision to update, the process needs to start with an
appraisal and revision of the background, question, inclusion criteria, and methods of the existing
review. The PUGs panel recommended that a protocol refresh will require the authors to use the
latest accepted methods of synthesis, even if this means repeating data extraction for all studies.
Click on the number under the heading Citing Articles, you’ll receive a list of these 73 publications.
The authors may comment on the generalization of the parameters utilized in harmonization or a
meta-analysis, as well as how the adjusted parameters themselves influence or provide insight into
study variability. Where possible, continuous outcome measures should be expressed in familiar units
(example 8b), particularly when the standardised mean difference is used (example 8c). Before you
start, you may want to brainstorm some common themes that you will use to analyze the sources
(e.g., participant characteristics, measurement tools, results). London: Elsevier. 24. Als-Nielsen B,
Gluud LL, Gluud C (2004) Methodological quality and treatment effects in randomized trials: a
review of six empirical studies. 12th Cochrane Colloquium, Ottawa (Canada). Retrieved from
Gleeson, J. (2007). Kinship care research and literature: Lessons learned and directions for future
research. A copy of this completed form will be available via the intranet to help others carrying out
reviews in the future and to avoid duplicating work already undertaken in the Centre. In addition,
the tools for diagnosis studies, prognosis studies and secondary studies were beyond the scope of
our study, and relevant users may refer to other studies, such as Quigley et al 14, for further
information. Yes, you’re welcome to share this template in its original format (no editing allowed).
Yet, the literature searching component of systematic reviews and related review types is often
poorly reported. Frequent pattern mining has a wide range of real world applications market basket
analysis is one of them. Writing the literature review: A practical guide Available 3rd floor of Perkins
Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences Available online.
These might be the elements that make this review unusual, or that assist readers in searching for the
review. Box 3: Examples of a systematic review’s currency The public is interested in vitamin C for
preventing the common cold: the Cochrane review includes over 29 trials with either no or small
effects, concluding good evidence of no important effects. 17 Assessment: still a current question
for the public. Eligibility criteria for reports may also include the language of publication, the
publication status (e.g., whether to include unpublished materials and abstracts) and the year of
publication (example 3d). You can also search for protocols that will indicate that another group has
set out on a similar project.
For example, the Ottawa 39 and RAND 45 methods focus on identification of new evidence, the
statistical predication tool 15 calculates the probability of new evidence changing the review
conclusion, and the value of information analysis approach 52 calculates the expected health gain
(table 1 ? ). Look for patterns in authors’ approaches or in their methodological handling of the
topic. From the first round of the survey, the ranked items were divided into three lists for the
second round. Dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine for treating uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum
malaria. Also there may be other 'Instructions to Authors' provided by the journals or organisations in
which you plan to publish. Embedded literature reviews, meanwhile, are part of a larger piece of
writing, such as an essay, thesis, or scholarly article. PRISMA 2020 consists of a checklist with 27
points and several flowcharts. Most Cochrane Reviews on the effects of interventions will include
some type of statistical synthesis. This provides key information about the scope of the systematic
review. However, this is only one dimension of the template, so it will still be useful if you are
adopting a different structure. Studies are not created equal, and the weight parameter lets
researchers account for these differences in the analysis. If you do so, however, you risk missing
material that may have been added retrospectively to the database. For example, examination of the
interventions studied is often needed to itemize their content so as to determine which studies can
be grouped in a single synthesis. Reviews that are widely cited and used could be important to
update should the need arise. Reviews may utilize a wide range of methods to synthesize the best
available evidence in answering a focused question. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit
line to the material. The current emphasis of authors, guideline developers, Cochrane, and
consequently this guidance has been on effects reviews. The purpose of this article is to describe key
factors for conducting and reporting systematic reviews, including meta-analyses, in LCA, based on
established recommendations from other fields of study. Published LCAs that are included in a
systematic review may sometimes be different at face value, but not necessarily significantly
different statistically. Fig. 3 illustrates. This re?ects that, while the idea of integrating. Among these,
30 (61%), 6 (12%) and 5 (10%) tools were designed for addressing methodological quality, reporting
and both, respectively, while 7 (14%) tools did not report intended use of the tools. There are several
different options for searching in Embase (via embase.com). In the search example below, we show
how you can structure the search in a similar way as in Medline Ovid. If there is insufficient evidence
from well-conducted studies to answer the review's question, this should be made clear to the reader.
Here we’ll review how you can do so in Web of Science and in SpiderCite, which builds on data
from Lens.org. We recommend that journal keyword databases include the terms “meta-analysis”
and “systematic review” in order to support appropriate classification and maximize search functions.
Need of systemic review and meta-analysis: There are several reasons for performing a systematic
review and meta-analysis: It may assist in resolving discrepancies in results published by individual
studies that may include bias or errors. As a result, it is possible and encouraged to publish
abbreviated versions of the review in other applicable scholarly journals; indeed, engaging in a
review update or joining a well-established review team may be a beneficial way to get involved in
the systematic review process. The following are the examples of spreadsheet table headings: a) date
of search, b) database code, c) database, d) search string, e) title, and f) abstract or something similar
depending upon your study. Systematic review article and Meta-analysis: Main steps for Successful
writin. Furthermore, systematic reviews are of particular importance in research areas where
substantial work has been done and information has been produced in the past.

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