Systematic Literarure Review Guide

1 Select one or more databases

• Suggestions:
  • Scopus is the largest
  • Web of Science is the second largest
  • IEEE Xplore is useful for technical/engineering conference papers
• Database tutorials/guides:
  • Scopus
  • Web of Science
  • IEEE Xplore

2 Define a search string

• Use the advanced search option
• Use terms related to your research
• Use the same search string in all selected databases
• You can refine your search, using boolean operators and filtering by author, title, abstract, topic, year, language, area, keywords, etc.
• Advanced search guides:
  • Scopus
  • Web of Science
  • IEEE Xplore

3 Save your search

• Save your search and set to receive periodical updates, so you can be informed of the latest published articles
• Saving a search in different databases:
  • Scopus
  • Web of Science
  • IEEE Xplore

4 Export the references

• Save the references found in spreadsheet format (Excel or CSV)
• When exporting on Scopus (CSV), select “Citation information”, “Bibliographical information”, and “Abstract & Keywords”
• When exporting on Web of Science (Excel), select “Author, Title, Source, Abstract”
• When exporting on IEEE Xplore, select “Search results”, and download the CSV file

5 Use a spreadsheet template

• Use a spreadsheet template to organise your findings
• Use the same template (such as the Scopus CSV file) to organise your references
• Update the data downloaded from other databases to match the template

6 Screen the results

• Organise your screening process using the spreadsheet template
• Do not delete the original results, keep different files for original and selected papers
• Screening order: title, abstract/keywords, full text
• Once the articles are selected by title and abstract/keywords, look for the full text
• The full text can be searched in the library website
• First, take a quick look at the papers (headings, pictures, tables, conclusions). If the paper is indeed interesting, read it more carefully

7 Download the selected papers

• Download only the selected papers, in PDF format

8 Read the articles

• After the screening process (title/abstract/keyword/full text), read all the selected papers

9 Use a reference manager

• Suggested reference manager: Mendeley
• Upload the selected papers in PDF format to Mendeley
• Mendeley auto-generates the references
• If any references are wrong/incomplete, you can edit them

10 Cite the papers

• Use a reference manager plug-in for Word to cite the papers as you write
• Suggestion: Mendeley Cite
• You can select the citation style you want in the plug-in
• The University of Galway suggests to use the Harvard citation style
• Mendeley Cite also generates a bibliography section

11 Present your findings

• Use tables/plots to summarise your findings
• You can use analysis tools to present your results, such as VOSviewer, Excel pivot tables, and Excel pivot charts

12 Follow previous review papers

• Use previous review papers, such as Schulze et al. (2016), as guidance