On September 10,
2014 JAMA published a viewpoint article with advice for authors wishing to
publish their review articles in JAMA. Careful scrutiny is needed in systematically
conducting the literature review. For this purpose, JAMA recommended
collaborating with a medical librarian. Thorough searches are difficult, but a
medical librarian can create a customized and systematic roadmap for the
process which will reduce bias in the final article. Additionally, librarians’
experience with the databases will make the search process more efficient and
effective.
The article further summarized ways that this
interprofessional collaboration will help authors:
- Help define the question(s), determine scope and feasibility
- Conduct preliminary search to further clarify scope
- Choose data sources based on content beyond PubMed and including Grey Literature
- Reduce research question to major concepts
- Create search strategies customized to the sources used and identify synonyms (controlled vocabulary and textwords) and limits
- Conduct searches
- Refine searches to optimize the output
- Organize the discovered information using citation management software
- Document the search strategy, procedure and results
This advice translates well to other disciplines and scholarly
journals as well. If you are writing and
article for JAMA or another scholarly journal, please contact A.R. Dykes Research and Learning Department
to set up a research consultation appointment.
