Literature searching is the process of searching and retrieving information published on a specific topic. This gathering of information in your chosen topic prior to writing an essay, dissertation or carrying out a project will assist you in finding background information and case studies or examples to illustrate your argument. To do so, you need to be able to identify the sources that would enable you to find the information relevant to your subject. These include books, journals/newspapers, electronic resources, videos and websites (the Internet). Therefore, you need to acquire the skills of choosing these sources and the process of retrieving the information you need. You will not develop these skills overnight. You will acquire the necessary skills to search, select and evaluate the information you find with practice. You will need to familiarise yourself with the catalogue and electronic databases.
A systematic review is a type of literature review that is thorough and reproduceable.
Make use of the indexes of literature with the widest coverage available through London Met or for free, use as many keywords to describe your research topic as possible, and use subject headings where available.
Record your searches and results at each stage of the process and build your search up in steps.
A systematic-type review that you will do as a student is done on a smaller scale than a published systematic review, so no need to include Google Scholar or grey literature sources.
Steps involved in writing a systematic review:
Definition of the review question
Writing, and approval, of the protocol
Operation of the search strategy
Study assessment
Creation of meta-analyses
Putting results of review into context
Please read The need for systematic reviews on nutrition and dietetics for details.
There is a practical guide to performing systematic reviews in a healthcare context provides a step-by-step approach for students and health professionals. Using free, open-source software to extract data and perform the necessary meta-analyses, this guide navigates the process of reviews, from study design and randomised controlled trials to interpreting results and reporting your findings.
Each chapter includes an overview, learning outcomes, and practice questions. Aimed particularly at those who do not have an extensive statistical background, it will help enable you to confidently perform high-quality systematic reviews.
Free download: https://bit.ly/438vzyU
What is the difference between a systematic review and a literature review?
Getting started - choosing databases:
You may want to include the following databases in your search. Most use three or more databases. See the A-Z of Library E-Resources for a description of each and to link through and start searching:
Getting started - scoping searches:
Your first searches will NOT be systematic, but WILL help you to refine your research question, identify gaps in the research, and identify extra terminology for later searches. You may choose to scope only in one database rather than trying many.
The systematic searching and screening process (see the search recordings tab):
Recording your methods and results:
Record your methods and results at every stage of the process in preparation for writing up your methodology and record reasons for excluding studies. There are tools that can help you do this, such as saving searches with personal accounts in databases, or doing screenshots of your search history, or simply keeping a record in a Word document. Doing a simple Internet search for systematic review tools will show you the range of other tools available.
See the other resources section of this guide to find links to PRISMA for the PRISMA flow diagram.
Books are still the main source of information as they give a comprehensive view on a particular subject. However, the disadvantage is that the books can be outdated.
It is very important to use the books given in your reading lists. You can also find books available on your topic using a keyword search in your catalogue. Furthermore, bibliographies given in books are useful for finding other books on your topic. Reading the summary or the blurb, or studying the contents list and the index of a textbook, will enable you to decide the relevance of this for your topic.
Catalogues are useful to find out what has been published in a particular subject, to find details of a book and also to find out the location of the particular book you want.
Books can be searched via
A journal is a collection of articles written by scholars in an academic field, published at a regular interval - weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, biennially, or annually. The articles are peer-reviewed and have up-to-date and detailed information compared to that of books.
Journal articles are indexed and can be searched by subject, author, and title, and are available in electronic format (see electronic databases). Reading the abstracts (summaries) provided should enable you to decide whether it is relevant or not for your topic.
A magazine is also like a journal, published at regular intervals, and contains articles by several contributors. However, the difference is that the articles are mainly geared toward the general public and are usually written by journalists. They are good for finding articles on current affairs and topical debates.
Newspapers are also published at a regular interval, daily national papers and weekly local papers. They are a good source for current information about international, national, and local events.
Materials that are not published through normal channels and therefore not available in a bookshop come under this category. Examples of such materials are theses, reports, and conference papers.
You can access the electronic version of most of the journals we subscribe to via the Library Catalogue by following the hyperlink given on the journal record. You can also access the Electronic Databases: A-Z list via the Library Services page. You can also find a list of relevant Journals and Electronic Databases on your Subject Library Guide.
Remember, anybody can publish material on the Internet, and there is no governing body in control of the quality of information that can be placed on the Internet. Therefore, it is important to evaluate what you find on the Internet. You must find out who is responsible for the document, what type of server that particular file is on, and where the file is registered. The UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR (URL) is the unique address of any web document, and this can give you answers to all these questions.
When you are searching online, including the catalogue, databases, and the Internet, use the same techniques. Two fundamental techniques of seeking information on the Internet are- SEARCHING & BROWSING
Searching
When you know what you want and need, you can locate specific information by entering a word/s or a phrase in a search box.
Browsing
When you follow a collection of hyperlinks (underlined text) through a set of web pages, containing lists of resources organised by subject. You browse a collection of links when you want to find out what is available on the Internet in your subject area.
Search Engines– should be used when you want something specific and need to be located quickly. E.g., looking for particular names of people or organisations. Files are collected and indexed by robots (machine intervention), e.g., GOOGLE
Searching for anything online – i.e., the catalogue, journal databases, and the Internet follows the same principles.
Use of Boolean logic AND, OR to link keywords
Use of truncation
Parentheses (Brackets)
Creating searches
Finding information should be done in stages
It is important to find much information from books, especially given on the reading lists.
You need to have a good understanding of the topic relating to the question before you go on to the next step.
