Best ... Systematic Literature Review guideline?

[lisa99]

Hi

I'm new to research, still doing my master. My research program supervisor has asked me to come up with a 4,000-word Systematic Literature Review. But he never gave me any guideline on how to start?

I'm about to conduct a literature review examining "the effectiveness of traditional project management in managing IT healthcare". So as you can see the topic is interdisciplinary and I'm confused how to start. 

Are there any recommended guidebook for conducting systematic literature review?  

[maxhgns]

Ask your supervisor for some guidance. That's what they're there for. 

[lisa99]

He doesn't really want to give any further details.  I have asked before, and he just ignored my email, twice.  So here I am searching and asking expertise. 

[sc9an]

I am also new to the game, but previously my experience was to look for published literature review articles on the topics or its related fields. These works could give you a framework. Then I looked for key articles and references mentioned there and see how those key works were then reviewed, cited and developed in the literature. In this way you have a few threads to work with and to fill in the framework.

Probably there are more mature and experienced ways to do it. Others can pitch in for you.

[Adelaide9216]

Ask the university librarian? 

[E-P]

Literature reviews are a pretty standard piece of writing for a master's student to do - my first assignment in my first MA class was a lit review.  But it's totally okay that you don't know what to do with it.  I'm lucky - my professor gave me good guidance.

 

That said, from my Googling, a "Systematic Literature Review" sounds exactly like any other lit review.  From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539417/:

 

A review earns the adjective systematic if it is based on a clearly formulated question, identifies relevant studies, appraises their quality and summarizes the evidence by use of explicit methodology. It is the explicit and systematic approach that distinguishes systematic reviews from traditional reviews and commentaries. Whenever we use the term review in this paper it will mean a systematic review. Reviews should never be done in any other way.

 

Have you done a lit review before?  If so, you're probably in a good place.  If not, spend some time googling around in terms of how to do a lit review.  I tend to start by reading papers and writing a summary of them in Mendeley.  What methods did they use, what conclusions did they come to.  Then, I look at the themes I've found and merge that into a paper.