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Plan Your Literature Review Project
- Get set up
- Conduct background research
- Develop one or more Research Questions
- Identify Outcomes or Information you need to answer your questions
- Identify at least 3 databases / search engines to use
- Brainstorm keywords and phrases based on major ideas in your topic and research questions, including synonyms
- Try out initial searches in a research literature database
- Adjust your search strategy/ies to get results relevant to your topic
- Consider comprehensiveness of results
- New Publication Alerts: Identify how to set alerts for new publications with your search terms
- Search all 3 databases or more
- Document your searches: (1) date searched, (2) database/search engine used, (3) keywords or prhases (4) index terms or headings, (5) limits/filters (6) set an alert (7) your notes on the search results
- Save your search results in a citation manager
- Update your citation manager when your alerts send new results
- Make a plan for notes - as you read, identify:
- Themes
- Theories
- Methodologies / Protocols
- Outcome measures
- 'Future Research needed'
- Gaps that you notice
- Questions you have about the papers you read
- Review search results and write notes on outcomes, other key information
- Repeat the above as needed
- Get assistance outlining, writing, or reviewing your draft literature review
