When you’re writing a research paper, it’s important to know that you’ve covered all your bases. But when there are so many sources to choose from, how can you be sure that each one is relevant? A scoping review helps you do just that—it allows you to focus on the central ideas in those sources and pull them together into an organized whole. In this article, we’ll explain what a scoping review is, how to do it effectively, and the key steps you need to take along the way.
What Is Scoping Review?
A scoping review is a systematic approach to reading and evaluating scholarly literature on a given topic. It’s similar to other types of reviews, such as literature reviews or meta-analyses.
Steps for doing Scoping Review
There are a number of steps to consider when doing a scoping review. Here, we’ll explain what each one is and how it can help you in your dissertation writing.
Gather the research articles.
The first and most important step in scoping review is to collect articles using the relevant search terms and Boolean operators. It includes:
- Gathering the research articles.
- Searching for articles on the topic. You can use Google Scholar, a search engine that specializes in academic literature, to find research papers related to your topic. Your teacher may also have a computer available at school or in the library where you can use it to conduct your own search as well.
- Checking if the library has them. If you’re not able to obtain copies of these articles from either of these sources, ask your instructor if you can use his or her account with an online journal database like JSTOR or ProQuest (some teachers will have access to both).
Write down the titles of the research articles you found.
Now that you’ve written down the titles of the research articles you found, it’s time to write down the names of journals in which they were published. If your search results only provided abstracts, this step won’t apply to you. A journal name is not included in the headline of an article or its abstract, look for it on Google Scholar (a free database) or PubMed (an online library).
If an article was published by a publisher other than one that provides full-text copies online like Elsevier or Springer Nature and so forth, then use their Web site’s “article search” function instead.
Also note that some scholarly journals are based at universities rather than commercial publishers—these include Harvard Business Review and The New England Journal of Medicine—and so may not be available through major databases such as those listed above. In this case, check whether there are any specific journals from which your institution subscribes, if so then use them instead!
Examine your database to determine whether it has an area in which you can record your notes and thoughts.
You need to find a place to record your notes and thoughts. If you don’t have a database, you can use a notebook. Whatever method you choose, it’s important that you can see all your notes without having to flip through pages.
Create a heading for each component
For each component, create a heading for each component under which you want to summarize your findings. The headings should be consistent across all articles and broad enough to include all relevant information. For example, if your topic is “How often does the average person sneeze,” then your headings could be:
- Frequency of sneezing (number of times per day)
- Gender differences
- Age differences
- Write down the key components of each article
You can also write down the key components of each article in one area under each heading, so that you can compare them to those of other articles. This will help you find out what is missing or different from the others.
-You can also note down what do you like about each article? What makes it unique? If you’re feeling particularly inspired, write down your own ideas for future articles.
Write a final summary for each component.
To ensure that you don’t miss anything, write a final summary of each component. Also, recall any discrepancies and use them to find out what is missing or different from the others.
Write a list of all the components on one page. The best way to do this is to create a table with two columns: one for each component and one for its final state. If you’re writing your Masters dissertation and finding it difficult to make a scoping review matrix, then get Masters dissertation help from experts.
Organize and synthesize all information
You should organize the information in a way that makes it easy to compare and contrast from one article to another. In addition, you need enough information to make a decision about whether or not there is a problem and how serious it is. If you have too little information for making decisions, then you should get some more data before moving forward with the rest of your scoping review process.
In the case of a scoping review, you need to decide what kind of data you need for your project. You will also need to know how much time it takes to get this data, and whether it is worth spending so much time on one part of your project.
Conclusion
The scoping review is an excellent way of organizing information and creating a framework for further research. It can also be used as a starting point to create more specific questions that need answering, such as “How does this affect patients?” or “What are the benefits of using this drug over others?” The scoping review process allows you to look at all available literature on your subject before deciding what might be useful in your own research project—and that’s a good thing!
