Week 4: Reviewing the Literature Flashcards
What are informal sources?
A starting point for learning about potential areas of inquiry
- Non technical documents from places like:
CDC, WHO, online fact sheets, brochures, and websites - Peer review full text articles
- helps build a foundation for understanding the most technical scientific literature to be read later
What are Statistical Reports?
Helps define exposure, statistics, an estimated prevalence of an exposure, or a global incidence.
Use information from:
- The World’s Bank World Development Indicators
- UN agency reports (such as WHO)
- Annual reports from groups like the American Cancer Society and Population Reference Bureau
- Information from state and local health departments
What are Vital Statistics?
Population level measurements related to births, deaths, and other demographic characteristics
— race, gender
— helps inform on a public health level
What is an Abstract Database?
A collection of abstract that allows researchers to search for articles using keywords or other search terms
- Can be searched with Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT
- Limits can be set so that the results include only abstracts with particular publication years, languages or other selected parameters
- Databases can also be searched by article title, author, and journal title
- NOT WORTH GOING THROUGH ABSTRACT DATABASE
-ERIC is a good one focuses on education
Choose the appropriate database
What is the most popular database?
PubMed
What databases are associated with the university library system?
- EBSCO
- JSTOR
- ProQuest
Others:
- Elsevier (owns ScienceDirect)
- SAGE publishing
- Springer Nature
- Taylor & Francis
- Wiley-Blackwell (owns Wiley Online Library)
What is included in a Critical Reading plan?
- Reread the abstract
- Look carefully at the tables and figures, which usually display the most important results
- Read (or skim) the entire text of the article
- Review the reference list for any additional sources that should be read
What is Internal Validity?
Evidence that a study measured what it intended to measure
Helps ascertain how well a particular study was designed, conducted, interpreted, and reported so that conclusions can be made about how likely it is that the paper presents the truth about a particular research question for the particular population
What is External Validity?
The likelihood that the results of a study with internal validity can be generalized to other populations, places, and times
- Generalizing!
What is Generalizability?
It means that the results of one study are considered to be applicable to a broader target audience.
- How well do the findings of this study fit with existing knowledge about this topic?
- To what other populations might the results apply? For example, are the results from a study in Canadian men ages 30 to 49 applicable to Mexican men ages 30 to 49?
What is an Annotated Bibliography?
A list of related publications that includes, at minimum, a full reference for each document being reviewed, a brief summary of the article or report, and a note about the resource’s potential relevance to the new study
What makes research original?
- Originality
2. Gaps in the literature
What is Originality?
The aspects of a new research project that are novel and will allow it to make a unique contribution to the health science literature.
What are Gaps in the Literature?
Missing pieces of information in the scientific body of knowledge that a new study could fill.
What makes a research project Original?
Needs to have only one substantive difference from previous work:
A new exposure, or a new disease/outcome, a new population, or a new perspective
