Search across guide titles, topics, keywords, and content throughout the Researcher's Field Guide.
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Finding a citation does not mean the full paper is available in the database where you found it. Verify the reference, search systematically across publisher, repository, and library routes, and do not treat an abstract or another author's description as a substitute for reading the original.
Read Guide →Reading an abstract can establish that a paper exists and provide a concise account of its purpose and reported findings, but it rarely gives enough information to evaluate the study fully. Whether you should cite it depends on the claim you are making and whether the abstract actually supports that claim.
Read Guide →If you know a study only because another paper describes or cites it, you have not consulted the original study. Find and read the original whenever reasonably possible; if you cannot, make the secondary route visible rather than citing the original as though you read it yourself.
Read Guide →Secondary citation makes it explicit that you learned about an original source through another work rather than consulting the original yourself. It can be appropriate when the original genuinely cannot be obtained, but it should usually remain a fallback rather than a shortcut around reading accessible sources.
Read Guide →A language barrier does not automatically make an important research source unusable. Translation tools can help you determine relevance and sometimes understand substantial portions of a paper, but important methodological, numerical, or interpretive claims may require verification by a fluent reader or reliable human translation.
Read Guide →Title and abstract screening is not about deciding whether a paper is good or reading it in full. Your task is to identify clearly ineligible records while retaining anything that could reasonably meet your review criteria.
Read Guide →You do not need the full text of every record your search retrieves. Retrieve it when a paper remains potentially eligible or when the title and abstract do not provide enough information for a defensible decision.
Read Guide →An unclear abstract is not evidence that a study is ineligible. When essential information is missing, keep the record under consideration and obtain enough information to make a defensible decision.
Read Guide →Inclusion and exclusion criteria should be applied consistently, but consistency does not require mechanical interpretation. Learn how to distinguish justified judgment from making exceptions for studies you happen to prefer.
Read Guide →Inclusion criteria can sometimes be changed after screening begins, but not simply because the studies you found are inconvenient. Any amendment should remain faithful to the review question, avoid being driven by study findings, and be documented transparently.
Read Guide →Finding an influential or highly relevant-looking study outside your eligibility criteria creates a difficult choice. Its importance may justify discussing it, but not automatically including it in the evidence being synthesized.
Read Guide →A study should not be excluded merely because it comes from another country or a somewhat different population. The relevant question is whether those differences matter enough to the review question to affect eligibility or how the evidence should be interpreted.
Read Guide →A good exclusion record shows how potentially relevant studies moved from consideration to exclusion. Learn what reasons to record, when detailed documentation is needed, and how to keep those decisions consistent and auditable.
Read Guide →Two reviewers are often used to reduce errors and individual judgment in study selection, but the requirement depends on the review methodology and screening stage. Learn when independent duplicate screening is expected and what “two reviewers” actually means.
Read Guide →A PRISMA flow diagram is designed to show how records identified through a systematic search moved through screening, retrieval, eligibility assessment, and final inclusion. It is appropriate for systematic reviews and many structured evidence syntheses, but not automatically for every literature review.
Read Guide →You rarely need to read every research paper from the first word to the last. Learn a practical multi-pass method for deciding what deserves attention, extracting the important evidence, and knowing when a paper requires a deeper read.
Read Guide →You rarely need to read every research paper from the first word to the last. The depth and order of your reading should depend on why you opened the paper and what you need to learn from it.
Read Guide →Not every paper you find deserves the same amount of attention. Screen its relevance first, then consider whether the evidence, methods, and role it may play in your research justify a deeper reading.
Read Guide →You do not need the same depth of understanding for every research paper you encounter. The more consequential the paper is to your argument, methodology, or interpretation, the more deeply you need to understand the parts on which you rely.
Read Guide →Good research notes are not miniature copies of the papers you read. Record what you will need later: the study's question, relevant evidence, limitations, your interpretation, and why the paper matters to your research.
Read Guide →Do not extract everything simply because it appears in the paper. Capture the study's question, context, design, sample or data, relevant measures or procedures, findings, limitations, and why the study matters to your research.
Read Guide →Remembering a paper is less important than being able to recover why it mattered. Leave a compact retrieval trail that records its contribution, relevance to your work, key evidence, limitations, connections, and what you intended to do with it.
Read Guide →Yes. Publication in a prestigious journal can be a useful signal about selectivity and scholarly attention, but it does not guarantee that an individual study is methodologically strong or that its conclusions are justified.
Read Guide →Every study has limitations, but not every limitation invalidates its findings. The key question is whether a methodological problem merely weakens or narrows an inference, or prevents the study from supporting its central claim at all.
Read Guide →A paper can change status after publication through a correction, expression of concern, or retraction. Before relying on an important study, check the publisher's current record and relevant scholarly databases rather than assuming the version you found reflects its present status.
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