🎓 Systematic Literature Review Made EASY: A Step-by-Step Guide ✅💪

Main Ideas

• A literature review helps establish what is already known, identify what remains unknown, and evaluate existing theories, methods, problems, and gaps.
• For doctoral research, grant proposals, and evidence-based decisions, a clear research gap is essential: researchers need to explain how their work adds to the existing body of knowledge.
• The presenter encourages researchers to consider publishing a literature review as a standalone article. In their view, this can:
  • Make use of the substantial effort already spent reviewing research.
  • Publicly document gaps that later empirical work can address.
  • Help establish a researcher’s expertise and attract citations.
• The presenter says that publishing a conventional narrative review can be difficult, particularly for early-career researchers. Such reviews rely heavily on the author’s choices and judgment, may lack a consistent structure, and can be hard for reviewers to assess.
• A meta-analysis is described as a more statistically demanding approach that combines results from multiple studies. The presenter positions a systematic review as a structured alternative between a traditional narrative review and a meta-analysis.
• The central principle of a systematic review is that the method—not the author’s personal judgment—should guide the search, selection, and analysis of studies. A well-designed review should be transparent, comprehensive, less prone to bias, and reproducible.
• PRISMA is presented as a key reporting guide. The presenter emphasizes following its checklist and explicitly reporting the steps taken. They also refer to their own publications that adapt PRISMA guidance for systematic reviews in social-science fields.

Systematic Review Process

1. Choose and Narrow the Topic

• Define what subject the review will cover.
• Formulate clear research objectives or questions: What do you want to find out?

2. Develop Search Terms

• Identify keywords and related terms, synonyms, and variations.
• Test and refine the search until it captures relevant literature without being unnecessarily broad.
• Aim for a sufficiently comprehensive search that does not miss important studies.

3. Set Eligibility Criteria in Advance

Decide which studies will and will not be included. Criteria may cover:

• Publication dates or time period.
• Language.
• Publication type, such as peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, or book chapters.
• Research design, such as empirical, quantitative, qualitative, or conceptual studies.
• Subject area or geographic context.
• Databases to search and whether additional manual searching will be conducted.

The presenter stresses that choices such as limiting the review to recent years need a reasoned justification.

4. Write and, Where Appropriate, Register a Protocol

• Record the planned search strategy, databases, criteria, and review procedures before conducting the review.
• Some fields and institutions register protocols. The presenter notes that this is more common in areas such as medicine and nursing than in the social sciences.
• If the protocol changes during the review, document the changes rather than silently altering the method.

5. Search Databases Systematically

• The presentation demonstrates searching in Scopus, while noting that other databases have similar search functions.
• Use database fields such as title, abstract, and keywords.
• Combine search terms with Boolean operators:
  • AND narrows results by requiring both terms or groups of terms.
  • OR broadens results by accepting either term, making it useful for synonyms and related concepts.
  • NOT excludes results containing a specified term.
• Use parentheses to group related alternatives. Truncation, shown with an asterisk in the example, can capture word variants such as finance and financial.
• The example search builds groups around gender, finance-related terms, and Malaysia, then applies limits such as language, subject area, and document type. Any limits should be justified and reported.

6. Screen the Search Results

• Export the results—as shown in the demonstration, to a spreadsheet—and record the relevant bibliographic information.
• Screen titles and abstracts against the predefined criteria.
• Retrieve and examine the full text of studies that appear eligible or are uncertain.
• The presenter suggests coding records in a spreadsheet—for example, as include, exclude, or uncertain—before making final decisions based on the full text.
• Where possible, use more than one reviewer and compare decisions. Explain the method and screening process.

7. Record the Selection Process

• Track how many records were identified, duplicates removed, records excluded at title and abstract screening, full texts assessed, and studies ultimately included.
• Report the numbers and reasons for exclusion, and include a PRISMA-style flow diagram.

8. Extract and Synthesize Information

• Decide in advance what information is relevant to the review question. Possible fields include country or context, aims, sample size, methods, and findings.
• Record information from each included study in a structured table or spreadsheet.
• Summarize patterns across the included studies in the results section.

9. Report the Review Transparently

• Identify the work as a systematic review in the title.
• Explain the rationale and objectives, databases and search dates, exact search terms, eligibility criteria, screening process, extraction procedure, and results.
• Follow the relevant PRISMA checklist and provide enough detail for another researcher to reproduce the process.

Search Example and Practical Cautions

• The Scopus demonstration illustrates how adding related terms can make a search more complete, while AND narrows the results and OR gathers alternatives.
• The presenter advises copying the exact search query into the paper so reviewers can inspect or repeat it.
• Abstract screening is only an initial step: potentially eligible studies should also be checked in full text.
• The presenter argues from personal experience that systematic reviews can be publishable even for novice researchers, including in high-impact journals. This is presented as their experience and recommendation, not a guarantee of acceptance.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Main presenter: A male speaker who teaches the workshop and describes his own research and publications. The subtitles do not explicitly state his name.
• Audience participant: Hazer, who briefly praises the presentation.
• People mentioned as examples, not as speakers: Malan, identified as the presenter’s doctoral student; Sara, described in connection with an example of a former doctoral student’s publications; and “MTS,” another former doctoral student.
• Guidelines and resources discussed: PRISMA; articles and a book chapter by the presenter about applying PRISMA to systematic reviews, including in social sciences; and examples of published review articles.
• Search tools and databases named or demonstrated: Scopus (demonstrated), Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, ProQuest, and Emerald.
• Other sources or publication examples mentioned: The ABDC journal list and journals including Current Issues in Tourism, Tourism Management Perspectives, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Omega, Tourism Review, and Nurse Researcher.