Literature Review and Information Resources

Vocabulary flashcards created from the lecture on Literature Review and Information Resources by Dr. Rehab Ali.

Literature Review

A structured process of finding, evaluating, and synthesizing existing evidence relevant to a research question.

First Step in Conducting a Literature Review

Formulating a focused research question.

Narrative Review

A flexible overview that provides a broad descriptive discussion of what is known about a broad topic without strict rules about how to search or which studies to include.

Systematic Review

A careful, structured, and reproducible review that answers a specific question using predefined search and eligibility criteria, thorough database searches, and critical appraisal of study quality.

Scoping Review

A review that maps what research exists on a topic to identify main concepts and evidence gaps, usually without judging study quality in detail.

Rapid Review

A streamlined version of a systematic review designed to provide evidence quickly for urgent decisions, policy, or guidelines when time or resources are limited.

MeSH

Stands for Medical Subject Headings; a controlled vocabulary and standardized list of medical tags used in MEDLINE/PubMed to group articles on the same topic together regardless of author wording.

Boolean Operator AND

A search operator that narrows search results by requiring all specified terms to appear in retrieved articles.

Boolean Operator OR

A search operator that broadens search results by allowing any of the specified terms to appear in retrieved articles.

Boolean Operator NOT

A search operator that excludes specified terms and records containing them from search results.

Primary Sources

Information resources where researchers report their own original study, such as RCTs, cohort studies, qualitative interviews, surveys, laboratory studies, and case reports.

Secondary Sources

Information resources where authors analyze, compare, or combine primary studies, such as systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and evidence-based guidelines.

Tertiary Sources

Information resources that summarize information from many sources, such as textbooks, encyclopedias, clinical handbooks, and drug references.

Reference-Management Program

Software (such as Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote) that stores bibliographic details, organizes references, and supports multiple citation styles.

Vancouver Style

A numeric citation style widely used in biomedical journals that uses numbers in brackets or superscript in the text in order of first mention and orders the reference list numerically.

Harvard Style

An author–date citation style that uses author surname and year in-text and orders the reference list alphabetically by author surname.

Plagiarism

Using someone else's ideas, words, data, or work without proper acknowledgment, including direct copying, close paraphrasing without citation, or self-plagiarism.

Predatory Journals

Journals that prioritize publication fees over rigorous peer review and editorial standards.

AI Hallucinations

A limitation of artificial intelligence tools where the system invents fake references or citations that do not exist or misattributes findings.