Literature Reviews: A How-To Guide

Peer review and medical students. What are best practices? What's the value? Do students need training, and if so, what does that consist of?

Start exploring the literature by searching for previously published literature reviews on your topic, which may help you:

• Identify gaps in the literature
• Ensure you are not duplicating efforts
• Determine if your research question is novel and needed
• Narrow down your research question
• Determine which type of literature review to undertake yourself

In PubMed, as in most databases, you can filter your results to reviews.

Check the boxes next to Review and Systematic Review on the left side of the screen to filter results to those article types.