Conducting a Literature Review

Begin by identifying a specific gap, ongoing debate, or historical trajectory in your field that requires clarification.

• Action: Rather than relying solely on high-impact journal browsing, initiate your scoping process by entering natural language questions directly into Consensus (e.g., "What are the competing theoretical explanations for [Topic]?"). 💡Tip: Make sure you’re logged in using your NECO email!
• Refinement: Deploy the Deep search feature in Consensus to map out where the literature splits or lacks consensus. This initial automated cross-verification allows you to refine your research question around proven areas of scientific disagreement, ensuring your review targets a highly relevant objective.

• Action: To establish robust inclusion and exclusion criteria, audit how your core terms behave across different disciplines. Query Consensus with prompts like, "Give me definitions for key terms relating to [Topic]." Also search Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) to determine the assigned subjects for your topic, which will help when searching databases like PubMed and Scopus.
• Refinement: This uncovers hidden variations in operational terminology across different journals and fields. Use these insights to choose your formal operational definitions (e.g., from WHO, NEI, or American Academy of Ophthalmology) if available, while accounting for semantic variations, protecting your upcoming search strings from blind spots.

A transparent, reproducible search strategy must be executed across multiple databases to ensure the validity of your narrative review.

• Action: Build structured Boolean search strings (using AND, OR, NOT) for primary legacy databases like PubMed or Scopus. Additionally, run natural language queries in Consensus to cover all your bases. For help developing a search strategy, schedule a consultation.
• Refinement: Toggle on Medical (Corpus > Medical) in Consensus to align your search with strict inclusion criteria (e.g. restricting results to human trials, guidelines, and peer-reviewed journals). Use the Citation Graph feature to automate the "snowballing" process, tracking down foundational or older papers that are cited in newer literature. Document all platforms you used in your methods section (e.g., "Searches were conducted across PubMed, Scopus, and Consensus...").

Manage and critically appraise your gathered evidence systematically to actively combat selection bias.

• Action: Import your citations from the various databases you used into a reference manager (we recommend Zotero) to remove duplicates, import the results into Consensus, and run your main question(s) as a yes-or-no query. Use the Consensus Meter to establish an objective, visual baseline of the percentage of literature that agrees, disagrees, or remains neutral on the topic.
• Refinement: When screening titles and abstracts, read the Snapshot for each study alongside the full text to instantly evaluate methodologies, sample sizes, and outcomes. Save your finalized selections into a custom Collection synced with your reference manager, ensuring you maintain a complete, unbiased pool of evidence.

A narrative review must move beyond a chronological list of summaries; it requires a deep, thematic integration of the material.

• Action: Map out your subheadings by looking for patterns, grouping papers by underlying mechanisms, and contrasting opposing findings. Use the Pro Analysis / Pro Messages feature to view an AI-generated paragraph synthesis of your search results, using it as a structural guide to see how different threads of evidence weave together.
• Refinement: For highly complex or conflicting sub-themes, isolate a subset of 5 to 10 pivotal papers in your collection and use the chat feature. Prompt the system to "Compare the methodologies and limitations across these specific studies" to extract deep points of contrast for your discussion section. Ensure your writing remains concept-driven, keeping ideas at the forefront of your sentences rather than starting paragraphs with researcher names (e.g., focus on the mechanism rather than "Smith et al. found...").

Draft the manuscript using the standard scientific format: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Discussion/Body, and Conclusion.

• Action: Detail your explicit multi-database search methodology in the Methods section so readers can verify the review's comprehensiveness. Move fluidly from general concepts to specific themes in your body paragraphs.
• Refinement: Treat the drafting phase as an active grounding process. If you write a sweeping narrative statement that requires verification, enter your draft claim into Consensus and prompt: "Find me references which support the following statement: [Insert your draft sentence]." This ensures that every assertion in your discussion is backed by a legitimate, DOI-linked academic paper, eliminating the risk of unverified claims or accidental AI hallucinations.

Before submitting for publication, evaluate your draft against established quality indicators to ensure peer-review readiness.

• Action: Self-assess your final manuscript using the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles (SANRA), which evaluates papers on six core standards: justification of importance, statement of aims, description of the literature search, referencing, scientific reasoning, and data presentation. 💡Tip: Ask a trusted colleague to assess the manuscript using SANRA as well.
• Refinement: Because this workflow seamlessly blends Boolean precision with semantic tracking, utilizes objective consensus metering to map out debates, and explicitly documents a multi-database search architecture, your manuscript should naturally score higher across SANRA’s most heavily scrutinized categories - specifically item 3 (description of the literature search) and item 5 (scientific reasoning).

• Sukhera J. Narrative Reviews: Flexible, Rigorous, and Practical. Journal of Graduate Medical Education. 2022;14(4):414-417. doi:10.4300/jgme-d-22-00480.1
• Cronin P, Ryan F, Coughlan M. Undertaking a literature review: a step-by-step approach. British Journal of Nursing. 2008;17(1):38-43. doi:10.12968/bjon.2008.17.1.28059
• Pautasso M. Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review. PLoS Computational Biology. 2013;9(9):e1003149. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149
• Baumeister RF, Leary MR. Writing narrative literature reviews. Review of General Psychology. 1997;1(3):311-320. doi:10.1037//1089-2680.1.3.311
• Baas J, Schotten M, Plume A, Côté G, Karimi R. Scopus as a curated, high-quality bibliometric data source for academic research in quantitative science studies. Quantitative Science Studies. 2020;1(1):377-386. doi:10.1162/qss_a_00019
• Baethge C, Goldbeck-Wood S, Mertens S. SANRA-a scale for the quality assessment of narrative review articles. Res Integr Peer Rev. 2019 Mar 26;4:5. doi: 10.1186/s41073-019-0064-8

Scoping reviews use a broader question structure than systematic reviews, typically guided by the PCC framework (Population, Concept, and Context) to capture a wide range of relevant study designs.

• Methodology: The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) has excellent resources for scoping reviews, so make use of them as you conduct your review.
• Action: Define your core concepts and population parameters. Input these overarching thematic ideas directly into Consensus as a natural language question (e.g., "What interventions exist for managing [Population] with [Concept] in [Context]?"). 💡Tip: Make sure you’re logged in using your NECO email!
• Refinement: Use the Deep search feature to run an initial broad sweep of the literature. Scan the generated overview to gauge the volume of research. If the initial sweep uncovers an unmanageable breadth of distinct topics, use these findings to tighten your PCC definitions before locking in your research question.

Because scoping reviews handle highly heterogeneous data, a predefined protocol is mandatory to prevent inadvertent changes to your search or inclusion criteria during the mapping process.

• Methodology: The PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines should be followed when drafting your protocol.
• Action: Outline your inclusion/exclusion rules, draft your proposed charting categories, and map out your planned database searches.
• Refinement: To establish a baseline of how key concepts are categorized in the literature, prompt Consensus with: "What are the main conceptual frameworks used to describe [Concept]?" Use the resulting data to build your protocol's extraction framework, then register the completed protocol publicly on a platform like OSF (Open Science Framework).

Scoping reviews require an extensive, iterative search strategy across multiple sources to truly "map" a field, including peer-reviewed literature and grey literature.

• Methodology: Arksey and O'Malley’s foundational scoping review framework mandates a comprehensive search strategy that spans electronic databases, hand-searching, and grey literature to ensure complete mapping.
• Action: Build structured Boolean search strings (using AND, OR, NOT) for primary databases (e.g., PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane). Additionally, run natural language queries in Consensus to cover all your bases. For help developing a search strategy, reach out to us at [email protected].
• Refinement: Because scoping reviews should include all available evidence, do not use strict study-design filters. However, you can use the Citation Graph tool in Consensus to quickly "snowball" across seminal papers. Document the process in your Methods section (e.g., "A comprehensive search was executed across PubMed, Scopus, and Consensus...").

Due to the broad inclusion criteria, screening in a scoping review often involves managing thousands of citations. It requires a team of at least two reviewers.

• Methodology: JBI guidelines recommend an iterative screening approach where reviewers meet regularly to refine inclusion criteria based on the types of literature they encounter during the screening process.
• Action: Import all citations from databases and Consensus into a reference manager (the NECO Library recommends Zotero) to remove duplicates. Have reviewers screen titles and abstracts independently against your PCC criteria.
• Refinement: To manage the massive volume of diverse abstracts, import all your citations into Consensus. Then, use the Consensus Meter on your core questions to establish a macro-level baseline of where the literature stands. Reviewers can then read the AI-extracted Snapshots alongside the abstract text to quickly assess a study's design, sample size, and geographic context, accelerating the inclusion/exclusion decision process.

In a scoping review, data extraction is sometimes referred to as "charting." This process captures the contextual details of the studies rather than just statistical outcomes.

• Methodology: Methodological frameworks state that charting must be an active, trial-and-error process where the extraction spreadsheet is updated as new variables emerge across the mapped literature.
• Action: Create a standardized charting spreadsheet (e.g., capturing Author, Year, Country, Study Design, Population, Methodology, and Key Findings). JBI has a useful template for this purpose.
• Refinement: Group your included papers into a custom Consensus Collection and launch the Chat feature. Prompt the system: "For these included papers, create a markdown table charting the following variables: [your chosen variables] and the primary conceptual definition used for [Concept]." This generates a foundational draft of your charting table, allowing your research team to focus on verifying the data and analyzing broader trends.

Unlike systematic reviews that aggregate data for a single endpoint, scoping reviews present a descriptive summary of the literature landscape, often accompanied by visual charts or maps.

• Methodology: Levac et al. updated traditional scoping review guidelines to emphasize that this step must go beyond a simple descriptive count of papers to integrate the findings and provide meaning for practitioners.
• Action: Analyze your charted data to identify overall trends, such as geographic distribution of research, common methodologies, and gaps where little to no research exists.
• Refinement: Use the Chat feature on your finalized Consensus Collection to generate an AI synthesis of the overarching themes within your dataset. This summary can serve as a structural blueprint for organizing your results section. When drafting the manuscript, use the Consensus search feature to fact-check your conceptual claims by entering a draft sentence with the prompt: "Find me literature confirming that [insert your descriptive finding] is a recognized gap in this field." This anchors your narrative claims to peer-reviewed documentation.

A unique component of a robust scoping review is consulting with knowledge users or practitioners to validate findings and ensure practical relevance.

• Methodology: Incorporating a practitioner consultation phase enhances the translation of your scoping review’s findings into actionable policy, clinical guidelines, or future primary research mandates.
• Action: Present your preliminary literature map and gap analysis to clinical, policy, or community partners for feedback.
• Refinement: Prior to your meeting, use the information generated in Steps 5 and 6 to build clean, digestible visual summaries (e.g., a table of methodologies or a chart of geographic distribution). Explicitly document this step in your final paper: "Preliminary mapping findings were shared with practitioners, and the final review was refined based on their real-world insights.”

• Arksey H, O'Malley L. Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 2005;8(1):19-32. doi:10.1080/1364557032000119616
• Levac D, Colquhoun H, O'Brien KK. Scoping studies: advancing the methodology. Implementation Science. 2010;5(1):69. doi:10.1186/1748-5908-5-69
• Tricco AC, Lillie E, Zarin W, et al. PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR): Checklist and Explanation. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2018;169(7):467-473. doi:10.7326/m18-0850
• Peters MD, Godfrey CM, Khalil H, McInerney P, Parker D, Soares CB. Guidance for conducting systematic scoping reviews. International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare. 2015;13(3):141-146. doi:10.1097/xeb.0000000000000050
• Munn Z, Peters MD, Stern C, Tufanaru C, McArthur A, Aromataris E. Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance on selecting a review type. BMC Medical Research Methodology. 2018;18(1):143. doi:10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x
• Peters MDJ, Godfrey C, McInerney P, Munn Z, Tricco AC, Khalil, H. Scoping Reviews (2020). Aromataris E, Lockwood C, Porritt K, Pilla B, Jordan Z, editors. JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. JBI; 2024. Chapter 10: Scoping Reviews. https://doi.org/10.46658/JBIMES-24-09
• Pham MT, Rajić A, Greig JD, Sargeant JM, Papadopoulos A, McEwen SA. A scoping review of scoping reviews: advancing the approach and reporting. Research Synthesis Methods. 2014;5(4):371-385. doi:10.1002/jrsm.1123
• JBI. Adelaide (AU): JBI; c2020-2026. Scoping Reviews - Resources. https://jbi.global/scoping-review-network/resources