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Topic Guide - Writing Resources

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What is a Literature Review?

The purpose of the literature review:

  1. What?
    • assess and explain what is known about a subject and what is not known about a subject. 
      • This is what we know:
        •  Summarize current research related to your topic.
      • This is what we don't know:
        • Identify voids or gaps in the research surrounding your topic.  
  2. Why?
    • discover the value, importance, and pertinence of researching your topic.
  3. How?
    • identify appropriate methods to evaluate and examine your topic.

Information adapted from The Doctor of Nursing Practice Project (2020), K. Moran, R. Burson, and D. Conrad.

 

Searching the Literature

 

How to conduct a search for literature.

  1. Identify the problem and construct a question.
    1. What is the problem and how might we go about solving the problem?
  2. Choose the appropriate database.
    1. A-Z Listing of Library Databases
  3. Develop your search strategy.
    1. Keywords
    2. Asterisk
    3. Quotation marks
    4. Boolean operators vs. none
    5. Limiters/filters
    6. Subject headings
    7. Citation chasing
  4. Conduct the search.
  5. Evaluate the results.
    1. Peer reviewed
    2. Primary vs. secondary
    3. Grey literature
      1. Documents produced by government institutions, academic institutions, businesses, and organizations that are not controlled by commercial publishing.
  6. If necessary, refine your search strategy. 

Information adapted from The Doctor of Nursing Practice Project (2020), K. Moran, R. Burson, and D. Conrad.

 

Literature Summary Table

 

Literature Summary Table
Year of Publication Publication Information (Author, Title, Journal) Objective of Research Research Design/Methodology Sample Size Results/Conclusions
2021 Kwee, et al., Metabolites and diabetes remission after weight loss. Nutr Diabetes. identify biomarkers predictive of type 2 diabetes remission and amount of weight loss in individuals with severe obesity targeted, quantitative mass spectrometry-based metabolomic profiling pre and post-intervention 324 identified circulating baseline biomarkers associated with diabetes remission
2022 Kermansaravi, et al., Current Status of Metabolic/Bariatric Surgery in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: an Updated Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Obes Surg. systematic review and meta-analysis intend to evaluate the efficacy of metabolic/bariatric surgeries (MBS) in patients with type-1 diabetes mellitus literature search and meta-analysis 27 primary studies comprising 648 subjects MBS acceptable and durable effects of bariatric surgical procedures
           
           

Information adapted from The Doctor of Nursing Practice Project (2020), K. Moran, R. Burson, and D. Conrad.