Research Guides: Systematic Reviews: How-To: 8. Write the Review

8. Write the Review

Writing your manuscript actually starts much earlier! The majority of what you put into your review protocol can be used to jumpstart your article. This is part of why a high-quality protocol is so important. Below are important considerations:

Are you using a reporting guideline? PRISMA is a common reporting standard for systematic reviews, but there are others. Make sure to check your preferred journal's submission guidelines to see what their standards are for systematic reviews
Check your protocol! Your protocol should include much of your introduction and a significant portion of your methods section
Make sure you include all team members in your manuscript, especially your librarian! If someone is listed as an author on your paper, they deserve the opportunity to review and contribute to the paper
Don't forget your search(es) - your librarian will provide a copy of all fully reproducible search strategies for you to include in your article's supplementary material

Reporting Guidelines:

PRISMA Checklist
The PRISMA 2020 statement comprises a 27-item checklist addressing the introduction, methods, results and discussion sections of a systematic review report.
PRISMA for Scoping Reviews
The PRISMA extension for scoping reviews was published in 2018. The checklist contains 20 essential reporting items and 2 optional items to include when completing a scoping review. Scoping reviews serve to synthesize evidence and assess the scope of literature on a topic. Among other objectives, scoping reviews help determine whether a systematic review of the literature is warranted.
MOOSE
Guidelines for meta-analyses of observational studies in epidemiology.

Flow Diagrams

PRISMA Flow Diagrams
Microsoft Word templates for PRISMA flow diagrams
PRISMA Flow Diagram Generator