1. Tools for Systematic Reviews
(Nedelina)
Thank you for coming today to the Systematic Review Tools workshops. We are very happy to have you join us as we walk through the various tools to support your research.
All quotes from these slides are available at

2. The Systematic Review Team
Eileen Harrington
Health & Life Sciences Librarian
Priddy Library Shady Grove
Sarah Over
Engineering
Librarian
STEM Library
College Park
Stephanie Ritchie
Agriculture & Natural Resources Librarian
STEM Library
College Park
Nedelina Tchangalova
Public Health Librarian
STEM Library
College Park
(Nedelina)
Let me introduce the Systematic Review Team and who we are.
We are librarians located on campus and off-campus, having different subject expertise. (Everyone introduces themselves)
Our contact information is also included in your handouts, should you have any questions after you leave the workshop.

3. Agenda for today
Learn about tools to support your research from start to finish
Free & easy to use
(Nedelina)
The first agenda item is “Learn about tools to support your research from start to finish.”
We will focus on specific tools to assist you with your research, including tools for:
Generating keywords for searches in library databases or to include as keywords for your manuscript.
Collecting the information you find
De-duplicating references (Yes, you will come across many duplicates, if you are searching several databases)
Analyzing the information you find from books, articles, web sites, etc.
Writing that spark your imagination and help you write your manuscript or report
Finding the best venue for your manuscript.
And all of these tools are FREE and easy (super easy!) to use!
There is no other agenda items, so isn’t it simple?

4. Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
~ Winston Churchill 
(Nedelina)
At the beginning of every research project, there is a lot of insecurity on how to approach it, a lot of anxiety if we can do it, a lot of stress from colleagues who are either not tech savvy or not contributing in a way we would expect, etc.
However, with advance thinking and planning, a research project can be led to the finish line successfully when using some tools that can make our work more organized and keep us within the timeline.

5. Let’s hit the research road!
"If you don't know where you are going. How can you expect to get there?"
~ Basil S. Walsh 
(Nedelina)
Let’s hit the research road. First, we will need to think about the final goal – a deliverable in the form of a written document, be it a report, a white paper, or a manuscript for publication.

6. What are you trying to accomplish?
Think big!
What are you trying to accomplish?
(Nedelina)
Are you working alone or do you need to assemble a team of collaborators?
Did you decide on the co-authorship?
Did you decide on the research question you are trying to answer?

7. 1 1. 2. Getting started MS Office Word Draft an abstract (Eileen)
To avoid some surprises at the end, look at some publication venues to see where your research topic will fit within what journal’s scope. Certain journals might also have requirements for how they want systematic reviews to be conducted, e.g. searching particular databases. Knowing this ahead of time can help guide your work. Maybe you can:
Open a MS Word document
Start drafting a preliminary abstract which you can copy/paste in different tools highlighted in this workshop.

8. MS Word Template (Eileen)
Create an outline of your thoughts based on a template available to download on the Systematic Review Libguide ( Create main headings that you can build the content on.
Draft an abstract – it doesn’t need to be the perfect one now but it will help you to find the best journal to publish your work. You will need this abstract to copy/paste in a Journal Finder Tool and figure out further formatting of your Word document based on the journal’s guidelines.

9. 2 Journal finder tools Elsevier Journal Finder Jane Biosemantics
List of tools
Elsevier Journal Finder
Jane Biosemantics
Springer Journal Suggester
Edanz Journal Selector
(Eileen)
Access the Systematic Review Libguide at to test out some of the suggested journal finder tools:
Elsevier Journal Finder – provides information on the author fees, journal impact factor, scope and more
Jane Biosemantics – provides list of journals and authors writing to topics similar to yours. Results are displayed in a graph showing where the journal is indexed, whether it is an open access journal, as well an article influence score similar to the Elsevier impact factor.
JournalGuide
Springer Journal Suggester – provides acceptance rate, impact factor and average days of first review.
Edanz Journal Selector – allows sorting by impact factor

10. 3 Text mining tools Yale MeSH Analyzer NCBI MeSH on Demand
SWIFT-Review
Voyant
JSTOR Text Analyzer
(Sarah)
Let’s explore the tabs on the Systematic Review Libguide ( They will help you to find search terms for creating the “lyrics” for your search strategy.
Search Term Harvesting – explore gold standards articles, look at published systematic reviews, search dictionaries to find relevant search terms.
Text mining tools – a list is available at Of particular interest are the following:
Yale MeSH Analyzer 
NCBI MeSH on Demand
SWIFT-Review – needs to be downloaded
Voyant - visualization
JSTOR Text Analyzer
Search Filters/hedges – use ready to use search strategies developed by librarians or adapt them to your research topic.
Evaluating checklists – find checklists to make sure you don’t have any errors in your search strategy.
Documenting – find ready to use templates to organize your findings. RevMan5 allows to create plot charts, excel spreadsheets ready to be copied/pasted in your manuscript.
List of tools

11. 4 Citation managers Zotero Mendeley Endnote Comparison chart
(Stephanie)
As you run searches in databases, use citation managers to store your references.
You can find a comparison chart between these three software in the Systematic Review Guide (
Comparison chart

12. 5 Screening tools Zotero Rayyan (Stephanie)
Zotero allows to add tags and notes to filter your list of references.
Rayyan provides more visual representation of the results and ways to collaborate with your teams. It offers the option for each reviewer to independently review the results by blinding the process. Once the review is completed, the results are blinded off and conflicting decisions are included in a particular folder. These conflicts can then be resolved through communication between team members.

13. 6 Writing tools Academic Phrasebank Grammarly (Sarah)
Academic Phrasebank - Get some inspiration and find some terms and phrases for writing your research paper.
Grammarly – a Google Chrome extension for web writing or Google Docs, as well downloading to your desktop for easier access. Just drag a document or copy/paste content.

14. 7 Visualization tools CitNetExplorer (Stephanie)
From
CitNetExplorer is a software tool for visualizing and analyzing citation networks of scientific publications. The tool allows citation networks to be imported directly from the Web of Science database. Citation networks can be explored interactively, for instance by drilling down into a network and by identifying clusters of closely related publications.
Why use CitNetExplorer?
Examples of applications of CitNetExplorer include:
Analyzing the development of a research field over time. CitNetExplorer visualizes the most important publications in a field and shows the citation relations between these publications to indicate how publications build on each other.
Identifying the literature on a research topic. CitNetExplorer delineates the literature on a research topic by identifying publications that are closely connected to each other in terms of citation relations.
Exploring the publication oeuvre of a researcher. CitNetExplorer visualizes the citation network of the publications of a researcher and shows how the work of a researcher has influenced the publications of other researchers.
Supporting literature reviewing. CitNetExplorer facilitates systematic literature reviewing by identifying publications cited by or citing to one or more selected publications.

15. Let’s review the tools. Questions?
Journal Finder
Text Mining
Citation Mangers
Screening Tools
Writing Tools
Visualization Tools

16. Thanks!
Write us at