Welcome!
This guide is designed to help students, faculty members, and researchers at Sargent College get started with systematic reviews, scoping reviews other types of evidence synthesis.
I look forward to assisting you!
How Can I Help?
Consultation & Training
This level of support is available to all undergraduates, graduates, postdocs, and faculty members at Sargent College. Any of these services are a regular part of my job and are available anytime:
- provide you with tools and resources for learning about the process of researching and writing systematic reviews/scoping reviews/meta-analyses.
- assistance finding existing systematic reviews on your topic.
- selecting appropriate journal databases for your research question.
- help with identifying controlled vocabulary and keywords to optimize your search.
- instruction on performing advanced searches in databases.
- recommending sources of grey literature to supplement your research.
- training on the use of citation management software & Rayyon to help you manage your research.
- help setting up research alerts in online databases.
Collaboration
I offer to collaborate with faculty members and postdoctoral researchers on systematic reviews/scoping reviews/meta-analyses projects. Collaborative services include all the services outlined in the consultation & training section plus:
- providing you with keywords and a search syntax for each database.
- running searches in our databases.
- saving search results in Rayyon (or citation management software) and removing duplicate entries from the search.
I request that you acknowledge my assistance in your final publication. Here is an example of an acknowledgement:
Escher, A. A., McKinnon, S., & Berger, S. (2022). Effective interventions within the scope of occupational therapy practice to address participation for adults with aphasia: A systematic review. British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 85(2), 99-110.
Please note: Depending on the time of the semester, there may be brief waiting period for collaborative services, but I will always be glad to help you get started by providing consultation and training services.
Co-Authorship
I offer to serve as a contributing author to your evidence-synthesis. As a contributing author, I will provide all the services described at the collaborative level, plus
- assistance retrieving the full-text of articles.
- documenting the search strategy and results according to PRISMA Guidelines.
- authoring the methodology section of your review related to the search strategy.
- outlining the search strategy in the appendices of your publications.
Please note: my availability to serve as a co-author may depend on the time of the semester and the number of other projects I am involved in, but I will always be glad to provide all consultation and training services, and/or collaboration.
Health Sciences Librarian
Why Work With a Librarian?
Rethlefsen, Farrell, Osterhaus Trzasko, & Brigham. (2015). Librarian co-authors correlated with higher quality reported search strategies in general internal medicine systematic reviews. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 68(6), 617-626.