2. Systematic reviews
• “A systematic review attempts to
identify, appraise and synthesize all the
empirical evidence that meets pre-
specified eligibility criteria to answer a
given research question” (Cochrane
Library)
RDF
InformationLiteracy
http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/
Cochrane Library (2013). About Cochrane Systematic Reviews and Protocols [online]. Available at:
http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/AboutCochraneSystematicReviews.html [accessed 19/7/2013].
4. Finding Published research
RDF
InformationLiteracy
http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/
Searching for published research is the easy bit …
• Major bibliographic databases e.g. Medline and
Embase
• Specialised databases e.g. PsycINFO for
psychology and psychiatry
• Trials registers
• Hand checking reference lists of relevant articles
• Citation searching – searching for articles that
have cited relevant papers
5. Finding unpublished research
RDF
InformationLiteracy
http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/
Finding unpublished research is not so easy, but
there are some good places to start
• Trials registers – to identify trials currently in
progress
• Conference proceedings
• Dissertations
• Contacting authors / experts
• Searching the websites or repositories of
professional societies, relevant organisations
and academic institutions
9. Search strategies
RDF
InformationLiteracy
http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/
• Identify all possible terms
• Think about synonyms, abbreviations,
acronyms, spelling variants
• Use both free text searching and controlled
vocabularies (e.g. MeSH)
• Look at how relevant papers have been
indexed to identify terms
• Look at search strategies of relevant papers
to identify keywords
10. Search strategies
RDF
InformationLiteracy
http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/
• Use operators to combine your searches:
• OR to combine related terms, synonyms etc.
• AND to combine all your concepts together
• ADJ or NEAR for terms in close proximity
• Search filters can be used in some
databases to identify particular types of
study e.g. randomised controlled trials
www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/intertasc/