Often called "screening your papers", screening your search results is the process of evaluating each research article in your search results to decide whether it meets your inclusion and exclusion criteria, and whether it should be included in your final work based on its relevance to your research question. The purpose is to ensure only the most relevant and high-quality studies are included in your work.

Documenting the screening process

Systematic searching techniques are used when searches need to be transparent and replicable. Therefore it will be important for you to keep a record of how many journal articles you are considering at certain points in the screening process so you can document it. You should ask you supervisor or consult the module handbook to find out how you will be expected to document the process as part of your assignment.

Systematic reviews use a PRIMSA flow diagram to illustrate how papers have been screened, you could also use this method. This is an annotated version of the flow diagram, explaining each stage of the process (click for full size):

Adapted from:Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n71

For more information on PRISMA, visit: http://www.prisma-statement.org/

Two steps to the screening process:

Step 1 Scanning titles and abstracts

This process allows you to remove irrelevant material that is easier to identify. You will end up with 3 categories of articles: "exclude" "include" and "maybe". You should be able to exclude the majority of your results through this method. At this stage you usually won't need to provide a justification for your exclusions but you should document how many articles you start with and how many you exclude.

Step 2 Scanning / reading the full text

This is when you will need to look more closely at the articles in your "include" and "maybe" categories. You will need to obtain the full text of these articles to be able to read more about the study and once again check them against your inclusion and exclusion criteria. You will be able to find the full text of articles by using Library Search or LibKey Nomad. In some cases you might need to request Inter-Library Loans for articles the library doesn't subscribe to.

At this stage you should document the reasons why you exclude articles as well as the number of articles you have read.

Using Reference Management Software

To help manage the screening process some people use reference management software such as Zotero, Mendeley and EndNote Online. These tools enable you to store the references of all of the articles found in your searches and can also help you to find the full text. Using this type of software means you can search in more than one database then import all the references into one place. Some articles will appear in more than one database so you will have some duplicates - reference management software can automatically remove these duplicates.

"Made for purpose" screening tools

These are tools which are made specifically for managing the screening process, they usually require a subscription, although some will provide free options with limits. These tools are only required for full systematic or scoping reviews where thousands of papers are screened by at least two people. Examples are Covidence and Rayyan, both have free and paid versions.