Evidence Synthesis: Pre-Review Tasks

Pre-review work is composed of several tasks:

• Assemble your research team to maximize your expertise and productivity.
• Ensure there is no similar evidence synthesis published on your topic in the last five years.
• Leverage similar review projects to inform the development of your evidence synthesis.
• Begin to develop your inclusion/exclusion criteria.
• Begin to investigate journals for publication. 

A review team should include individuals with expertise in content areas, systematic review methods, searching for evidence, quantitative methods, etc.

	Team Member	Role
	Primary Investigator / Team Leader	Responsible for overseeing the project
	Screeners	At least two screeners are needed, but a third screener is useful for ties
	Librarian	Various levels of involvement which could include search development, translation, etc.
	Subject Specialist	At least one team member with sufficient subject expertise to guide the creation of inclusion and exclusion criteria and data extraction
	Bio-statistician	Team member who is able to analyze the questions and data extraction template to ensure meaningful results are reported

Perform preliminary research to ensure there are no recent or overlapping projects.

Similar Reviews

Examine similar systematic reviews to differentiate your project from any similar projects. Other benefits include better understanding of the topic landscape, generate search terms, locate potential critical appraisal tools, identification of potential landmark studies, and compare databases.

Locate the full text of the systematic review using the title of the article and the library’s main search box or Google Scholar.  

Differentiate Your Project

If you locate a review with the same research question, you may need to alter your project. Some ways to set your project apart include:

• Look for methodological problems in the search or limitations section
• Update their search if it was not run recently
• Change your inclusion/exclusion criteria
• Add additional databases to increase the scope of coverage
• Check the conclusion section for the authors' suggestions for further research

The MWU Library offers a great tool to use to find potential journals to submit articles to. Journalytics Medicine gives you all the information on journals so that you can choose the journal with the readership you want to reach while also avoiding predatory publishers.