Prevention & Community Health: Literature Review

Interdisciplinary Citation Databases:

A good place to start your research is to search a research citation database to view the scope of literature available on your topic.

TIP #1: SEED ARTICLE
Begin your research with a "seed article" - an article that strongly supports your research topic.  Then use a citation database to follow the studies published by finding articles which have cited that article, either because they support it or because they disagree with it.

TIP #2: SNOWBALLING
Snowballing is the process where researchers will begin with a select number of articles they have identified relevant/strongly supports their topic and then search each articles' references reviewing the studies cited to determine if they are relevant to your research.

BONUS POINTS: This process also helps identify key highly cited authors within a topic to help establish the "experts" in the field.

Begin by constructing a focused research question to help you then convert it into an effective search strategy.

• Identify keywords or synonyms
• Type of study/resources
• Which database(s) to search

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of published information on a subject area. Conducting a literature review demands a careful examination of a body of literature that has been published that helps answer your research question (See PICO). Literature reviewed includes scholarly journals, scholarly books, authoritative databases, primary sources and grey literature.

A literature review attempts to answer the following:

• What is known about the subject?
• What is the chronology of knowledge about my subject?
• Are there any gaps in the literature?
• Is there a consensus/debate on issues?

TIPS:

1. Create a clear research question/statement
2. Define the scope of the review include limitations
   (i.e. gender, age, location, nationality...)
3. Search existing literature including classic works on your topic and grey literature
4. Evaluate results and the evidence
   (Avoid discounting information that contradicts your research)
5. Track and organize references

The PICO model can help you formulate a good clinical question. Sometimes it's referred to as PICO-T, containing an optional 5th factor. 

TIP – How to Locate Seminal Works

• DO NOT: Limit by date range or you might overlook the seminal works
• DO: Look at highly cited references (Seminal articles are frequently referred to “cited” in the research)
• DO: Search citation databases like Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar