Evidence Synthesis: Formulate Question

Your research question determines the type of review you will conduct. Formulating the right research question is a process that may take a while. Without careful preparation, however, your review will lack focus and take much more work to complete, if even possible. 

Start with your idea for a topic, then do some exploratory searches and use the results to formulate and refine your question. Conduct searches to:¹

• Determine if a systematic review or other evidence synthesis on your topic has been done recently. You might need to shift your focus.
• See if enough studies have been done on your topic to warrant an evidence synthesis.
• Identify key concepts, terminology, keywords, synonyms.
• Identify key/landmark studies that you can use to test your search strategy on. These studies should show up in your results list when you run your search.
• Explore database options that you will need to include in your final searches.

What is a key, or landmark study? 

A 'landmark study’ is a study you anticipate will be included in your systematic review. Sometimes referred to as a 'key study,' 'examplar study,' 'seed article,’ or 'known study,’ these are studies that you anticipate appearing in your search, progressing through your screening process, meeting your inclusion criteria, and are included in your data analysis. In other words, known studies will likely be in your final ‘n,’ your sample of original research for synthesis and critical appraisal. Landmark studies are the articles that answer your research question. 

Locate landmark studies through a thorough literature review. Ask a librarian for help if needed. 

Why identify key/landmark studies?

Having a selection of landmark studies at hand while developing your research project is helpful for a few reasons: 

• Analyzing such articles can aid in the creation of the search strategy. 
• It is a useful measure to determine the effectiveness of the systematic search strategy. If known articles appear in the search results, the search may be effective.
• Examining landmark studies may help develop inclusion/exclusion criteria and tables for data extraction

1. Formulate your Research Question, Systematic Reviews & Evidence Synthesis Methods, University of Texas Libraries, accessed Feb 17, 2025 https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/systematicreviews/formulatequestion

Searching, Evidence Synthesis in the Health Sciences, Brown University Library https://libguides.brown.edu/Reviews/searching