Watch on YouTube

4:56

What kind of review are you doing?

Four kinds of review answer four different questions. A systematic review follows a pre-specified protocol across multiple databases and appraises quality, over months and with a team. A scoping review maps what evidence exists without appraising it. A narrative review selects on relevance and expertise, which is where cherry-picking creeps in. A bibliometric analysis counts papers, authors and countries: what the literature looks like, not what it says. That choice sets the rigor and the time we owe, so we make it before typing into a search box.

Also covered: evidence synthesis · inclusion and exclusion criteria · knowledge gaps · co-authorship and citation networks · keyword co-occurrence maps