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Systematic reviewing

This page aims to give a few general pointers to help you carry out systematic review. A systematic review is not the same thing as an annotated bibliography, a best evidence topic, a critically approased topic (CAT) or a literature search. However, it may be worthwhile reading these pages if you are about to undertake any of these activities!

Some definitions:

  • Systematic reviews are a comprehensive survey of a focused question in which all of the primary studies of the highest level of evidence are systematically identified, appraised and then summarized according to an explicit and reproducible methodology. Systematic reviews differ from traditional reviews and commentaries produced by ‘content experts’ in that they adhere to a scientific methodology which seeks to minimise bias and errors. There are a number of international organisations that prepare, maintain and disseminate systematic reviews including: The Cochrane Collaboration; The Campbell Collaboration (C2); The Joanna Briggs Institute.
  • A randomised controlled trial (RCT) is an experiment in which investigators randomly allocate eligible people into (for example, treatment and control) groups to receive or not to receive one or more interventions that are being compared.
  • A Meta analysis is a statistical technique for assembling the results of several studies in a review into a single numerical estimate.

Types of review:

At GCU, there are three main types of review:

The first two have specific methodologies and handbooks setting them out. The third type of review allows you more flexibility in your methodology, but there are some general rules that you should bear in mind. Here are links to some general information:

Is it a new review or an update?
If you have been asked to update a previously published review, then you will have to follow an already established search strategy. This may cause problems if the database software has changed (for example not allowing command line searching) or if new resources have become available. This is where it is always a good idea to talk to the review team or the supervisor.

This page was produced in collaboration with Dr Helen Marlborough of Glasgow University Library.

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PILOT by Imperial College London, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.