The Sheridan Libraries
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- Literature Reviews + Annotating
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- Background Information
- Books, E-books, Dissertations
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- Google Scholar and Google Books
- PUBMED and EMBASE
- Statistics -- United States
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- Avoiding Plagiarism
- Citing Sources This link opens in a new window
- Copyright This link opens in a new window
- Evaluating Information This link opens in a new window
- RefWorks Guide and Help This link opens in a new window
- Epidemic Proportions
- Environment and Your Health, AS 280.335, Fall 2024
- Honors in Public Health, AS280.495, Fall 2024-Spring 2025
- Intro to Public Health, AS280.101, Fall 2024
- Research Methods in Public Health, AS280.240, Fall 2024
- Social+Behavioral Determinants of Health, AS280.355, Fall 2024
- Feedback (for class use only)
Literature Reviews
- Organizing/Synthesizing
- Peer Review
- Ulrich's -- One More Way To Find Peer-reviewed Papers
"Literature review," "systematic literature review," "integrative literature review" -- these are terms used in different disciplines for basically the same thing -- a rigorous examination of the scholarly literature about a topic (at different levels of rigor, and with some different emphases).
1. Our library's guide to Writing a Literature Review
2. Other helpful sites
- Writing Center at UNC (Chapel Hill) -- A very good guide about lit reviews and how to write them
- Literature Review: Synthesizing Multiple Sources (LSU, June 2011 but good; PDF) -- Planning, writing, and tips for revising your paper
3. Welch Library's list of the types of expert reviews
Doing a good job of organizing your information makes writing about it a lot easier.
You can organize your sources using a citation manager, such as refworks , or use a matrix (if you only have a few references):.
- Use Google Sheets, Word, Excel, or whatever you prefer to create a table
- The column headings should include the citation information, and the main points that you want to track, as shown
Synthesizing your information is not just summarizing it. Here are processes and examples about how to combine your sources into a good piece of writing:
- Purdue OWL's Synthesizing Sources
- Synthesizing Sources (California State University, Northridge)
"PICO" is the acronym for the concepts used to create good research questions -- Patient/Population/Problem, Intervention, Comparison or Control, Outcome. Note: This " model is most applicable for outcomes of interventions ," and thereore may not be suitable for all research questions.
- Welch Medical Library's nursing guide to doing literature reviews has a link to a basic worksheet that may help you organize your concepts
- Here is the UNC Health Sciences Library guide about PICO
Annotated Bibliography
An "annotation" is a note or comment. An "annotated bibliography" is a "list of citations to books, articles, and [other items]. Each citation is followed by a brief...descriptive and evaluative paragraph, [whose purpose is] to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited."*
- Purdue's OWL (Online Writing Lab) includes definitions and samples of annotations
- Cornell's guide * to writing annotated bibliographies
* Thank you to Olin Library Reference, Research & Learning Services, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY, USA https://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography
What does "peer-reviewed" mean?
- If an article has been peer-reviewed before being published, it means that the article has been read by other people in the same field of study ("peers").
- The author's reviewers have commented on the article, not only noting typos and possible errors, but also giving a judgment about whether or not the article should be published by the journal to which it was submitted.
How do I find "peer-reviewed" materials?
- Most of the the research articles in scholarly journals are peer-reviewed.
- Many databases allow you to check a box that says "peer-reviewed," or to see which results in your list of results are from peer-reviewed sources. Some of the databases that provide this are Academic Search Ultimate, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Sociological Abstracts.
What kinds of materials are *not* peer-reviewed?
- open web pages
- most newspapers, newsletters, and news items in journals
- letters to the editor
- press releases
- columns and blogs
- book reviews
- anything in a popular magazine (e.g., Time, Newsweek, Glamour, Men's Health)
If a piece of information wasn't peer-reviewed, does that mean that I can't trust it at all?
No; sometimes you can. For example, the preprints submitted to well-known sites such as arXiv (mainly covering physics) and CiteSeerX (mainly covering computer science) are probably trustworthy, as are the databases and web pages produced by entities such as the National Library of Medicine, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Cancer Society.
Is this paper peer-reviewed? Ulrichsweb will tell you.
1) On the library home page , choose "Articles and Databases" --> "Databases" --> Ulrichsweb
2) Put in the title of the JOURNAL (not the article), in quotation marks so all the words are next to each other
3) Mouse over the black icon, and you'll see that it means "refereed" (which means peer-reviewed, because it's been looked at by referees or reviewers). This journal is not peer-reviewed, because none of the formats have a black icon next to it:
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- Last Updated: Sep 19, 2024 2:18 PM
- URL: https://guides.library.jhu.edu/public-health
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Systematic Reviews
Describes what is involved with conducting a systematic review of the literature for evidence-based public health and how the librarian is a partner in the process.
Several CDC librarians have special training in conducting literature searches for systematic reviews. Literature searches for systematic reviews can take a few weeks to several months from planning to delivery.
Fill out a search request form here or contact the Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library by email [email protected] or telephone 404-639-1717.
Campbell Collaboration
Cochrane Collaboration
Eppi Centre
Joanna Briggs Institute
McMaster University
PRISMA Statement
Systematic Reviews – CRD’s Guide
Systematic Reviews of Health Promotion and Public Health Interventions
The Guide to Community Preventive Services
Look for systematic reviews that have already been published.
- To ensure that the work has not already been done.
- To provides examples of search strategies for your topic
Look in PROSPERO for registered systematic reviews.
Search Cochrane and CRD-York for systematic reviews.
Search filter for finding systematic reviews in PubMed
Other search filters to locate systematic reviews
A systematic review attempts to collect and analyze all evidence that answers a specific question. The question must be clearly defined and have inclusion and exclusion criteria. A broad and thorough search of the literature is performed and a critical analysis of the search results is reported and ultimately provides a current evidence-based answer to the specific question.
Time: According to Cochrane , it takes 18 months on average to complete a Systematic Review.
The average systematic review from beginning to end requires 18 months of work. “…to find out about a healthcare intervention it is worth searching research literature thoroughly to see if the answer is already known. This may require considerable work over many months…” ( Cochrane Collaboration )
Review Team: Team Members at minimum…
- Content expert
- 2 reviewers
- 1 tie breaker
- 1 statistician (meta-analysis)
- 1 economist if conducting an economic analysis
- *1 librarian (expert searcher) trained in systematic reviews
“Expert searchers are an important part of the systematic review team, crucial throughout the review process-from the development of the proposal and research question to publication.” ( McGowan & Sampson, 2005 )
*Ask your librarian to write a methods section regarding the search methods and to give them co-authorship. You may also want to consider providing a copy of one or all of the search strategies used in an appendix.
The Question to Be Answered: A clearly defined and specific question or questions with inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Written Protocol: Outline the study method, rationale, key questions, inclusion and exclusion criteria, literature searches, data abstraction and data management, analysis of quality of the individual studies, synthesis of data, and grading of the evidience for each key question.
Literature Searches: Search for any systematic reviews that may already answer the key question(s). Next, choose appropriate databases and conduct very broad, comprehensive searches. Search strategies must be documented so that they can be duplicated. The librarian is integral to this step of the process. Before your librarian creates a search strategy and starts searching in earnest you should write a detailed PICO question , determine the inclusion and exclusion criteria for your study, run a preliminary search, and have 2-4 articles that already fit the criteria for your review.
What is searched depends on the topic of the review but should include…
- At least 3 standard medical databases like PubMed/Medline, CINAHL, Embase, etc..
- At least 2 grey literature resources like Clinicaltrials.gov, COS Conference Papers Index, Grey Literature Report, etc…
Citation Management: EndNote is a bibliographic management tools that assist researchers in managing citations. The Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library oversees the site license for EndNote.
To request installation: The library provides EndNote to CDC staff under a site-wide license. Please use the ITSO Software Request Tool (SRT) and submit a request for the latest version (or upgraded version) of EndNote. Please be sure to include the computer name for the workstation where you would like to have the software installed.
EndNote Training: CDC Library offers training on EndNote on a regular basis – both a basic and advanced course. To view the course descriptions and upcoming training dates, please visit the CDC Library training page .
For assistance with EndNote software, please contact [email protected]
Vendor Support and Services: EndNote – Support and Services (Thomson Reuters) EndNote – Tutorials and Live Online Classes (Thomson Reuters)
Getting Articles:
Articles can be obtained using DocExpress or by searching the electronic journals at the Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library.
IOM Standards for Systematic Reviews: Standard 3.1: Conduct a comprehensive systematic search for evidence
The goal of a systematic review search is to maximize recall and precision while keeping results manageable. Recall (sensitivity) is defined as the number of relevant reports identified divided by the total number of relevant reports in existence. Precision (specificity) is defined as the number of relevant reports identified divided by the total number of reports identified.
Issues to consider when creating a systematic review search:
- All concepts are included in the strategy
- All appropriate subject headings are used
- Appropriate use of explosion
- Appropriate use of subheadings and floating subheadings
- Use of natural language (text words) in addition to controlled vocabulary terms
- Use of appropriate synonyms, acronyms, etc.
- Truncation and spelling variation as appropriate
- Appropriate use of limits such as language, years, etc.
- Field searching, publication type, author, etc.
- Boolean operators used appropriately
- Line errors: when searches are combined using line numbers, be sure the numbers refer to the searches intended
- Check indexing of relevant articles
- Search strategy adapted as needed for multiple databases
- Cochrane Handbook: Searching for Studies See Part 2, Chapter 6
A step-by-step guide to systematically identify all relevant animal studies
Materials listed in these guides are selected to provide awareness of quality public health literature and resources. A material’s inclusion does not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Public Health Service (PHS), or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nor does it imply endorsement of the material’s methods or findings. HHS, PHS, and CDC assume no responsibility for the factual accuracy of the items presented. The selection, omission, or content of items does not imply any endorsement or other position taken by HHS, PHS, and CDC. Opinion, findings, and conclusions expressed by the original authors of items included in these materials, or persons quoted therein, are strictly their own and are in no way meant to represent the opinion or views of HHS, PHS, or CDC. References to publications, news sources, and non-CDC Websites are provided solely for informational purposes and do not imply endorsement by HHS, PHS, or CDC.
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Literature Reviews
Sample Literature Review (annotated)
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