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How to Find and Conduct Systematic Reviews

Step-by-step instructions on how to find and conduct systematic reviews, intended for students in the health sciences.

TO DO LIST

1. You have conducted an extensive review of the literature and now have a lot of citations to manage. How you do so depends on your preferences, but you may wish to consider a citation manager such as RefWorks or EndNote.

2. Most databases have an option usually called "Export" that will allow you to automatically transfer the citation information from the database to the citation manager. For details, see the specific database instructions in the box at the right, "RefWorks and Selected Databases," or contact your librarian.

Next - Step 9+: What Happens Next?

MORE INFORMATION

Note: in most databases, it is not possible to export thousands of results at a time. It is typical to export your results set in batches (e.g., 200 at a time). This is a time-consuming process but the good news is you only need to do it once!

There is no known limit to the number of references you can add to RefWorks or EndNote. Simply keep your import batches small (between 100 and 500 references at a time) and conduct multiple imports until all references have been imported successfully.