Advanced searching: a searching strategy that aims at completing a thorough search across different databases and sources of grey literature. The strategy contains keywords and thesaurus terms. It also makes use of operators, truncation and wildcards as and when appropriate. It is recommended that you seek advice from an Information Specialist.
Annotated bibliography: a list of references (a bibliography) at the end of your work which includes a brief summary / evaluation of the citation.
Bibliographic databases: an online collection of records of published (and sometimes unpublished) work, such as journal articles, conference proceedings, thesis etc. Databases are the main source of information for many types of reviews. A list relevant to your discipline can be found in your subject Libguide.
CASP checklist: a tool used to evaluate research and assess risk of bias. It is freely available online and there are different checklists depending on the study design. It can be used in the quality assessment phase of healthcare systematic reviews.
Citation searching: a technique used to identify further relevant articles. It consists of checking citations and references of one or more key articles. This technique can be used in many different reviews.
Cochrane review: a systematic review of research in health care and health policy that is published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. They are often considered the 'gold standard' of systematic reviews in healthcare.
Controlled vocabulary: see Subject Headings.
Critical Appraisal: assessing the quality of the evidence (usually published research). Also referred to as 'quality assessment' or 'risk of bias assessment'. This is a key step in systematic and rapid reviews, but assessing the quality of selected papers is best practice in any review (it can be considered a form of critical evaluation). In healthcare, many tools are available to complete a critical appraisal (see CASP).
Database filters (or limits / limiters): database tools that allows you to filter results by a certain criteria such as date of publication or language. Depending on the type of review you are doing, you might or might not be allowed to use these. Not to be confused with (validated) search filters, which are peer-reviewed strategies created by Information Specialists.
Emtree terms: subject terms / thesaurus used on the Embase database (similar to MeSh for Medline).
Exploded term (or exp): the database will search for that subject term plus any term underneath it in the hierarchy (or tree). This can be done in databases on the Ovid platform and CINAHL. For example, the exploded MeSh term Diabetes Mellitus will also retrieve articles indexed with sub-terms such as Type 1, Type 2, Gestational etc.
Evidence synthesis: refers to any research method of identifying, selecting, and combining results from multiple studies. Literature reviews are types of evidence synthesis. This term is sometimes used in healthcare to refer to systematic reviews.
Field (tag or code): a section of a record (for example, title, abstract etc.) where you want your keywords to appear. For example, by selecting Title and Abstract as fields, the database will search for specified keywords only in the title and abstract of the articles.
Grey literature: any type of information that has not being published via traditional routes (namely academic journals). Examples are online pre-publication articles, conference proceedings, thesis, reports etc. Depending on the type of review and on the research question, you might need to search grey literature sources besides bibliographic databases.
Handsearching: manually scanning selected sources (for example, Google Scholar and specialised journals) to identify further useful articles that might have been missed during database searching. This is a complimentary technique used in many type of reviews. It also involves citation searching (see above).
Inclusion / Exclusion criteria: criteria set up by the researcher(s) that determine which articles will be included or excluded during the screening process. These are clearly defined in the protocol (if you need to complete one), and in the Methods section. This is an essential step is systematic, rapid and scoping reviews; however it is best practice to include criteria in any review. The question framework can help you set out your criteria.
Keywords (or free text words): words that are likely to appear in relevant articles and the you use to search for such articles. Similarly to when you search Google, you would use keywords in the databases' search boxes. A good search strategy uses the right combination of groups of keywords, together with database operators. You can ask your Information Specialist for advice.
Literature reviews: comprehensive summaries and syntheses of the previous research on a given topic. Sometimes this term is used to refer to narrative / standard literature reviews.
Meta-analysis: statistical technique to combine quantitative results of different studies. This can be the last step of a systematic review. Sometimes an article can be referred to as a 'meta-analysis'.
PRISMA checklist: a checklist of items that need to be reported in a systematic review. You can use this to ensure transparency and clarity in your review.
PRISMA flow diagram: a flow diagram that reports the process of screening articles in systematic reviews. It is also used in other types of reviews to improve transparency and minimise selection bias. It is usually included in the Results section.
PROSPERO: an international prospective register of systematic (and other types of) reviews, mainly for healthcare. Usually a review protocol is uploaded along with a status (not started, ongoing, completed etc.). This helps avoiding repetition of research effort and improves transparency or research methods. Check with your supervisor if you need to register to review on PROSPERO (usually you do if you want to publish it).
Protocol: the plan of action of a review (usually systematic, rapid and scoping). It sets out objectives, methods and selection criteria. A healthcare review protocol is usually registered in PROSPERO or similar registers.
Quality assessment: see Critical Appraisal.
Question framework: a framework of three of more concept that help you define your research question. Common examples by subject are: healthcare intervention - PICO (population, intervention, comparison outcome); management and policy - CIMO (context, intervention, mechanism, outcome); social research - SPIDER (sample, phenomenon of interest, design, evaluation, research type).
Rapid review: a review that uses systematic methodologies but within time constraints. This means that some steps are simplified.
Risk of bias assessment: see Critical Appraisal.
Replicable (or reproducible) search: a search strategy that has been reported in a transparent and clear way, so that it can be reproduced by another person reading the review. Having a replicable search is particularly important in systematic reviews, but also scoping and rapid. The Methods section will include sources, dates of searching, any filter and additional techniques. An appendix will show the full search strategy for each database.
Scoping review: systematically and transparently collects, categorises and assesses evidence on a research question to identify gaps in the literature.
Screening: the process of going through each article found during searching and determining whether it should be included in the review. This process needs to be transparent in systematic, rapid and scoping reviews. It should be reported following the PRISMA flow diagram.
Search strategy: what you plan to do to find information (usually articles and grey literature). This includes databases, any register, any grey literature search. It also includes how you are going to use these i.e. what keywords and terms you are going to use. Consult your Information Specialist on the best search strategy to use for your review.
Search string (or search query): a series of keywords and sometimes thesaurus / subject terms to identify a concept. Sometimes used to refer to search strategies.
Systematic review: systematically and transparently collects, assesses and synthesizes existing evidence to answer a specific, well defined question. Please see dedicated tabs.
Subject headings (or controlled vocabulary / database thesaurus): terms or phrases used to describe what an article is about. When articles are indexed in a database, they are assigned these headings which are organised in a thesaurus or hierarchy. Examples are MeSh in Medline, Emtree in Embase and Proquest Thesurus. Ask you Information Specialist for advice on how and when to use these.
Text word: see Keywords.
Thesaurus: see Subject Headings.
Truncation: a way of abbreviating a keyword to automatically search for its variation. Usually done using the symbol * in different databases and search engines. Example: manag* will search for manage, management, managing etc.
Umbrella review: a review of systematic reviews. Usually addresses a broader question and it might be used when there are different competing interventions.
Validated search filters: search strings that have been developed and peer-reviewed by professionals. They can be integrated to the search strategy (with citations!). They can help identifying particular populations, geographical areas, contexts, issues etc. Ask your Information Specialist for advice.
Wildcards: symbols used in databases and other platforms to search for specific variations of a word. To find out what wildcards a database uses, consult the database's Help pages or Google the name of the databases and 'wildcards'. Example: 'wom?n' in the database Web of Science will search for 'woman' and 'women'.
