Systematic review example

How does it work?

What a good example of a systematic review is? In fact, it is an independent scientific study with its own approaches, methods, and rules. The objects of this study are other works, articles describing the original research on a given topic.

When creating a systematic review, it is necessary to remember the main goal - to give a concise but extremely reliable and relevant view of a narrow problem, to help colleagues orient in the current trends on this topic. To do this, you must strictly follow several rules for creating a quality example of a systematic review.

First, the search for publications on the issue should be as broad and comprehensive as possible. But modern realities of science are such that there is a great multitude of works on any topic. And the second point comes from here - already at the search stage, it is necessary to clearly formulate strict criteria for selecting articles for the future review. It is also important that they should be accurate (in order to get rid of unnecessary sources that are not relevant to the topic) and reproducible (it would be strange to use new criteria for each new batch of articles, would it?)

Finally, when we have collected all the necessary material, it's time to work with it - to evaluate the structure, features of research, highlighting the most significant and reliable results, their generalization and interpretation - translation into a working, understandable language. It is especially important if a certain systematic review article example is being prepared for a dissertation or a grant - in these cases, the results should inform not only about scientific significance of the conducted research but also about the practical component.

A systematic review and a literature review: how not to confuse them?

If you show several different studies to a novice researcher and ask "Which of the following is an example of a systematic review?", most likely, he will not give the correct answer immediately. When creating a systematic research, it is extremely important not to confuse it with a classical literature review, to see the fine line that lies between these genres. So what is the difference? After all, both types of papers are very actively used in scientific circles.

To begin with, a systematic review focuses on one clear problem, as opposed to a wide range of issues in the literature review. The search strategy is rigorous and accurate, just as are the principles of selecting and evaluating data that strictly follow certain criteria. Information is generalized on a quantitative basis, and conclusions must be scientifically justified. Only having found all these signs, you can be sure that it is a systematic review abstract example in your hands.

Large-scale international teams and communities of scientists are being established now to summarize systematic reviews, develop common criteria, recommendations for specialists. In particular, one of the most famous organizations of this type is the international community of scientists Cochrane Collaboration, founded in 1993.

Conclusions

So, systematic reviews are analytical and synthetic articles that allow to get a statistically verified, comprehensive extract on a specific issue, based on a set of criteria that reduce the possibility of any errors to a minimum. The presence of a systematic review in the thesis helps to significantly increase the value of the work both theoretically and in terms of practical application.

Using such a research as a literary base of a scientific paper, an expert can analyze the maximum of data in a volume that is comfortable for perception, and, if necessary, resort to a more detailed study of individual publications on the problem. There is no need to revise the immense number of works on the chosen topic.

It is impossible to overemphasize the usefulness of a qualitative systematic review for a practicing specialist. After all, based on one study, he can make authoritative conclusions and reasoned decisions, raise his level not only as a professional but also as a scientist in the eyes of colleagues and customers.