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Evidence synthesis

Writing your review

If all the previous steps of your review have been done effectively, it can be written up. When writing up your review, researchers should follow both:  

  • methodological guidelines, which outline how to conduct the review 
  • reporting guidelines, which specify how to transparently present findings.

Some resources to help you with writing your review are provided below:

  • Griffith Method
    Video 4 on Writing the Review, includes a recommended order for writing the paper.
     
  • Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review (2016)
    Shows how to take a structured and organised approach to a wide range of systematic-like review types. This book helps you to choose which approach is right for your research.
     
  • Doing a Systematic Review (2014)
    This book provides a roadmap to guide you through the Systematic Review process. Throughout the book, the authors make extensive use of questions posed by real students when carrying out reviews to help you through some of the challenges you may face. 

Reporting your review

The best known reporting guideline for an evidence synthesis literature review is PRISMA. It has multiple adaptations for different review types. There are also other discipline specific reporting guidelines such as ROSES and ENTREQ.


Publishing your review

You need to find an appropriate platform to publish your review. Reviews can be published through organisations like Cochrane Collaboration or Joanna Briggs Institute, specialist review journals, academic journals or institutional repositories. Researchers should consider publishing in open platforms like Open Science Framework.

Tip

Check out the useful resources the Library offers to help you with publishing your research including Where Should I Publish (WSIP), Your Publishing Plan, and Open Access guide.

Researchers should review the requirements of their target journal early in the process to ensure their manuscript aligns with submission expectations. Use the Think. Check. Submit. checklist to identify trustworthy journals to publish your review. 


Promoting your review

Publishing is not the final step of your review. It's essential you ensure that the review contributes to ongoing research, policy development and evidence-informed decision-making.

Note

For more information and training on measuring the contribution and impact of your research check out our research metrics help.


Literature review modules

For further information and instructions on the screening stage of a literature review please explore our Module 6: Screening, Synthesis and Dissemination.


Further resources

If you are interesting in further information on this stage of a review, check out the following resources: