Back to: Search and Screen Your Studies

Your rough data extraction form can also help you:

Track which study matches which question

If you have multiple research questions, you can use the form to note which question matches which abstract.

Find studies that were included on accident

And if you conclude that an abstract was incorrectly accepted during the first stage of screening, just record your reason for rejecting it at this stage.

This information should be included in your report, usually in the form of a “literature identification flow diagram” at the beginning of the results and a full list of rejected studies with their rejection reasons in an appendix.

Once you’ve used your abstracts to clarify and narrow down your search criteria, you’re ready to find and review the full-text articles that still seem relevant to your research questions.