Back to: Search and Screen Your Studies

After one or more pilot rounds (however many it takes for your screeners to make consistent decisions about which articles stay and which articles go), you’ll divide the abstracts among your team, making sure two reviewers read each abstract.

We call this “screening in duplicate.” This is a quality control measure to reduce human error. If the screeners disagree about an article, use a third team member as a tie-breaker or discuss that abstract as a group. Remember, at this stage it is best to err on the side of keeping articles you aren’t sure about until you get the full text and have more information.