Search across guide titles, topics, keywords, and content throughout the Researcher's Field Guide.
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An older review does not automatically need replacing simply because several years have passed. What matters is whether new evidence or methodological developments could meaningfully change what the review tells us.
Read Guide →A newer method does not automatically make an older review obsolete. Another review is most defensible when methodological developments could materially improve the evidence, analysis, certainty, or conclusions.
Read Guide →Two reviews addressing similar questions are not automatically wasteful. Duplication becomes problematic when another review consumes substantial resources without adding useful evidence, verification, methodological improvement, or reduction in uncertainty.
Read Guide →Publicity does not make a research finding unreliable, but it can magnify the consequences of getting the interpretation wrong. Learn how to scrutinize highly visible findings without assuming they are false.
Read Guide →A literature review becomes unreliable when sources are selected because their conclusions feel convincing or compatible with the researcher's position. Separate decisions about relevance and methodological quality from whether you agree with what a study found.
Read Guide →Reviewing literature outside your discipline requires more than finding relevant papers. Learn how to orient yourself to an unfamiliar field, search iteratively, interpret studies in disciplinary context, and recognize when you need expert help.
Read Guide →You do not need to master an unfamiliar discipline's entire vocabulary before searching it. Learn how to use relevant papers, indexing terms, databases, and iterative searching to build the vocabulary your literature search actually needs.
Read Guide →Your usual database may cover part of an unfamiliar discipline without covering it well. Learn how to identify the specialist databases and important publication venues that actually structure a field's literature.
Read Guide →A highly local research question often requires more than adding a place name to a database search. Learn how to combine broad scholarly searching with local databases, repositories, grey literature, contextual terminology, and transparent search documentation.
Read Guide →Local theses and dissertations can reveal studies that never reached journal publication, particularly for highly local topics. Their inclusion should depend on the research question and eligibility criteria, not on either their local origin or unpublished status.
Read Guide →When published evidence is scarce, searching grey literature more extensively can uncover studies, results, and ongoing research that conventional databases miss. The search should become more targeted and transparent, not simply broader without limit.
Read Guide →Tens of thousands of search results do not automatically mean your literature search has failed. Learn how to diagnose why a search is so large and narrow it in ways that remain defensible for your research question.
Read Guide →Searching more databases does not automatically make a literature review comprehensive. What matters is whether your chosen sources collectively cover the disciplines, publication types, regions, and terminology relevant to your question.
Read Guide →Relevant studies do not always use the terminology you expect. A defensible search anticipates alternative language without assuming that simply adding more terms will make the search better.
Read Guide →Published journal articles may represent a selective subset of completed research. When missing studies or results could affect your conclusion, searching beyond conventional publications may be methodologically important.
Read Guide →Five weak studies do not automatically outweigh one strong study. Evidence should influence a conclusion according to what it can reliably tell you, not simply because it adds another citation to the literature.
Read Guide →Published journal articles may represent only part of the available evidence. Learn when grey and unpublished literature can materially improve your review and how to use it without lowering your standards of appraisal.
Read Guide →Publication and peer review do not eliminate methodological weaknesses. Learn how to evaluate what a study actually did, how much bias its design permits, and how much evidential weight its findings deserve.
Read Guide →A conclusion becomes no more certain simply because many authors repeat it. Learn how to work backward from interpretation to design, measurements, estimates, and uncertainty to determine what the evidence actually establishes.
Read Guide →A literature review can contain recent papers and still be out of date. Learn how to judge search currency based on when you actually searched, how quickly the field changes, and whether new evidence could alter your conclusions.
Read Guide →A researcher’s background and position can influence what questions seem important, who participates, what people disclose, how evidence is generated, and how findings are interpreted. The relevant influences depend on the particular researcher, study, setting, and methodology.
Read Guide →Research objectives can sometimes change after data collection begins, but the timing and reason matter. Legitimate amendments should be distinguished from changes made because researchers have already seen results they prefer.
Read Guide →An objective promises more than the design can deliver when it requires evidence or an inference that the planned study cannot validly produce. The remedy may be to narrow the objective, strengthen the design, or reconsider the research question rather than merely changing a few verbs.
Read Guide →Choosing a research design before identifying the evidence your question requires can produce a methodologically sound study that answers the wrong question. Learn how to work from the intended claim to the necessary evidence before committing to a design.
Read Guide →A research design does not become appropriate simply because it is widely used in your discipline. Learn how to distinguish established methodological conventions from the evidence your question actually requires, and when departing from familiar approaches is justified.
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