Systematic Literature Review: step‑by‑step guide

Imagine you are surrounded by dozens of scholarly articles scattered all over various journals and databases. Going through them and comparing all this information will definitely be very confusing and difficult.

Luckily, systematic literature review comes to the rescue here because it gives you a methodological way of searching, evaluating, and synthesizing research literature in order to answer a specific research question.

No matter whether you are a postgraduate or researcher, you can benefit from conducting a systematic review because it makes your research more systematic and credible. Where should you start then? Let’s find out.

When Should You Conduct a Systematic Literature Review?

The systematic review will come in handy when there is a need to conduct a complete survey of existing literature related to the problem at hand instead of basing it on several selected documents.

For instance, say that you would like to establish the effects of a specific instructional strategy on student performance.

You can go ahead and read five or ten books and form your own conclusions. It is however possible that the five or ten books are not a true representation of the whole literature.

It is particularly useful when you want to:

• Answer a specific and focused research question
• Examine evidence from multiple studies
• Identify gaps in existing research
• Compare findings across different studies
• Support evidence-based conclusions
• Provide a strong foundation for further research

However, not every research question requires this approach. If the topic is extremely broad or there are very few studies available, another type of literature review may be more appropriate.

Step-by-Step Process for Writing a Systematic Literature Review

Now we come to the process that most people conducting systematic reviews would be more interested in: how to do a systematic review.

While the specific process might change based on the topic and research questions, the following list should work for most situations.

Step 1: Develop a Clear Research Question

All processes start from a good research question.

The question, like, “What are the impacts of technology on education?” is too wide; it might generate thousands of results, thus complicating your analysis.

However, you might want to narrow it down. Like this one:

“What is the impact of using digital learning platforms on academic performance of undergraduate students?”

The narrower question helps to understand what kind of evidence you will be looking for.

Sometimes, in certain subjects, a framework like PICO may be used to develop a clear research question.

Step 2: Develop a Review Protocol

Decide on the reviewing strategy before you search through the databases.

It must provide answers to research questions, databases and key words used, eligibility criteria, screening, data extraction techniques, quality assessment methods etc.

It makes the basis of your systematic literature review methodology and avoids the randomness of decisions that can occur after the results of your search.

Think about the protocol as about your research map. Once you choose the route, you will not get lost along the way.

Step 3: Search Relevant Databases

After that, comes the step of locating the studies.

It is important to choose the right databases for your area of study. There are many databases which are used in different fields like Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, IEEE Xplore, etc.

Construct your search strategy using the key words and the synonyms. Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT can be used to construct your search string.

Example:

"Digital Learning" AND "Academic performance" AND "Undergraduate students"

Write down the databases you chose, keywords and their dates and the number of studies located. It will be useful for the explanation of your systematic review process later on.

Step 4: Set Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

You will probably find more studies than you can include.

This is why you need clear rules before selecting papers. These are called inclusion and exclusion criteria.

You might decide to include studies that:

• Were published within a specific period
• Focused on your target population
• Used a particular research design
• Directly addressed your research question
• Were available in a selected language

You may omit any duplicated papers, irrelevant papers, conference papers, or papers that do not satisfy your methodology criteria.

Having these rules beforehand will make your selection more consistent.

Step 5: Screen and Select Relevant Studies

Once the search is complete, start screening the results.

First, remove duplicate records. Then review titles and abstracts to identify potentially relevant studies. The remaining papers can be examined in full text.

It is essential at this point to document the reasons why some studies have been excluded as this will enable the reader to follow how the research has evolved from the initial set of findings to the final inclusion criteria.

The process of doing this can be enhanced through the use of a flow diagram. Researchers usually employ PRISMA systematic review methodology in order to report the process of identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion.

Following the PRISMA guidelines for systematic review reporting can also improve transparency when reporting the review.

Step 6: Extract and Organize the Data

Now that you have your chosen articles, the next step is to gather the relevant data from each article.

Data Extraction Table (containing information like):

Information	Example
Author and year	Smith et al., 2025
Study design	Cross-sectional
Sample size	250 participants
Population	Undergraduate students
Main findings	Improved academic performance
Limitations	Small sample size

It will, however, depend on what you need to find out through your research. It will make comparison much easier because all the data is kept in one table.

Step 7: Assess the Quality of the Studies

Not every published study is equally reliable.

Before using evidence in your conclusions, assess the methodological quality and potential risk of bias of the included studies. The appropriate assessment tool will depend on the study design and discipline.

Consider the issues related to design of study, sampling, methods of data collection, analysis, and possible biases.

This step is important in the process of conducting systematic review methodology because any sound conclusion should be backed up with evidence that has been analyzed thoroughly.

Step 8: Synthesis of Findings

Now we need to take a step back and consider the big picture.

It would be a grave mistake to provide an analysis by merely listing out the findings of each study without relating them to others.

For instance, what if eight studies demonstrated positive effects and three did not demonstrate any or little effect? Why was that the case? Did they work with different populations or sample sizes?

Depending on the evidence available, either narrative synthesis approach or statistical techniques may be used to analyze data. Under some conditions, systematic review with meta analysis could be conducted to conduct statistical analysis on similar findings.

The objective of such analysis is to reveal the story that emerges from evidence.

Step 9: Write the Review

After the analysis stage comes writing of the review.

Describe the sources you have reviewed, selection criteria used and evidence you have found, as well as its implications.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Systematic Review

However, even an ideally structured literature review might fail to meet the expectations due to certain simple mistakes.

Here are some pitfalls to pay attention to:

• Using ambiguous research questions: The question should not be too wide to facilitate analysis and search process.
• Search in a single database: The scope of research will be significantly narrowed, and you can miss out on crucial sources.
• Changing criteria while screening: Criteria for inclusion/exclusion must be established at the very beginning of the search process if possible.
• Not keeping track of the search: Note all databases searched and results obtained during the process.
• Not considering the quality of the study: Publication does not always indicate good methodology.
• Describing the papers without synthesizing information: A review is not supposed to be a mere summary of the research articles.
• Drawing inappropriate conclusions: Your conclusions should be consistent with the results and methods of research.

For researchers working on a systematic review for PhD, maintaining the documentation throughout the process becomes especially important since it can be a substantial part of the thesis.

Final Wrap‑Up

Contrary to the popular misconception that doing a good review is about having to read many papers, a good review lies in posing the right question, having the right methodology, and analyzing the information.

The systematic review steps involved in carrying out a systematic review are things like formulating the question, creating the methodology, database searches, study selection, data extraction, evaluation of the quality of the studies, synthesis of results, and reporting.

Though the systematic review definition might seem rather complex, the essence of the process is actually quite simple: gather the available evidence systematically to answer the research question.

When conducting your review according to these principles, you will not only conduct the literature review. You will understand the current state of knowledge in the field and determine the direction for future systematic literature review services.

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