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An English abstract can often help you discover and provisionally screen a study published in another language. Whether it is enough depends on the decision you are trying to make and how much information the abstract actually contains.
Read Guide →A missing English abstract should not automatically remove a potentially relevant study from consideration. Other metadata, original-language text, citation trails, journal records, and targeted translation can help you determine whether the study should proceed.
Read Guide →A local research problem can appear scarcely studied when the databases you search do not adequately cover the journals, languages, repositories, or document types where local evidence is published. Before declaring a research gap, test whether you may instead have a discovery gap.
Read Guide →A paywalled journal article may have a legitimate open version elsewhere. Learn where to search, how to recognize different manuscript versions, and how to verify that the copy you find is the paper you actually need.
Read Guide →An accepted manuscript has passed peer review but is not necessarily identical to the final published article. For many reading purposes it may contain the research you need, but post-acceptance changes, corrections, and citation details can sometimes make the version of record important.
Read Guide →If you cannot access a research paper, contacting the author is a legitimate option and may result in a copy or an authorized access link. Learn whom to contact, how to make the request, and why the version an author can share may depend on publisher policies and publication rights.
Read Guide →An institutional repository is a digital service used by a university or other organization to collect, preserve, and provide access to scholarly outputs created by its community. It may contain an accessible manuscript of a paper even when the publisher's version is behind a paywall.
Read Guide →A paper uploaded to ResearchGate or Academia.edu is not automatically reliable or unreliable simply because of where you found it. Verify the paper's identity, publication status, manuscript version, provenance, and current scholarly record before relying on the uploaded file.
Read Guide →Finding a citation does not mean the full paper is available in the database where you found it. Verify the reference, search systematically across publisher, repository, and library routes, and do not treat an abstract or another author's description as a substitute for reading the original.
Read Guide →Reading an abstract can establish that a paper exists and provide a concise account of its purpose and reported findings, but it rarely gives enough information to evaluate the study fully. Whether you should cite it depends on the claim you are making and whether the abstract actually supports that claim.
Read Guide →If you know a study only because another paper describes or cites it, you have not consulted the original study. Find and read the original whenever reasonably possible; if you cannot, make the secondary route visible rather than citing the original as though you read it yourself.
Read Guide →Secondary citation makes it explicit that you learned about an original source through another work rather than consulting the original yourself. It can be appropriate when the original genuinely cannot be obtained, but it should usually remain a fallback rather than a shortcut around reading accessible sources.
Read Guide →A language barrier does not automatically make an important research source unusable. Translation tools can help you determine relevance and sometimes understand substantial portions of a paper, but important methodological, numerical, or interpretive claims may require verification by a fluent reader or reliable human translation.
Read Guide →An author’s accepted manuscript has passed peer review but is not necessarily identical to the final published article. Learn when it can support your research and what you should verify before relying on it.
Read Guide →Title and abstract screening is not about deciding whether a paper is good or reading it in full. Your task is to identify clearly ineligible records while retaining anything that could reasonably meet your review criteria.
Read Guide →You do not need the full text of every record your search retrieves. Retrieve it when a paper remains potentially eligible or when the title and abstract do not provide enough information for a defensible decision.
Read Guide →An unclear abstract is not evidence that a study is ineligible. When essential information is missing, keep the record under consideration and obtain enough information to make a defensible decision.
Read Guide →Inclusion and exclusion criteria should be applied consistently, but consistency does not require mechanical interpretation. Learn how to distinguish justified judgment from making exceptions for studies you happen to prefer.
Read Guide →Inclusion criteria can sometimes be changed after screening begins, but not simply because the studies you found are inconvenient. Any amendment should remain faithful to the review question, avoid being driven by study findings, and be documented transparently.
Read Guide →Finding an influential or highly relevant-looking study outside your eligibility criteria creates a difficult choice. Its importance may justify discussing it, but not automatically including it in the evidence being synthesized.
Read Guide →A study should not be excluded merely because it comes from another country or a somewhat different population. The relevant question is whether those differences matter enough to the review question to affect eligibility or how the evidence should be interpreted.
Read Guide →A good exclusion record shows how potentially relevant studies moved from consideration to exclusion. Learn what reasons to record, when detailed documentation is needed, and how to keep those decisions consistent and auditable.
Read Guide →Two reviewers are often used to reduce errors and individual judgment in study selection, but the requirement depends on the review methodology and screening stage. Learn when independent duplicate screening is expected and what “two reviewers” actually means.
Read Guide →A PRISMA flow diagram is designed to show how records identified through a systematic search moved through screening, retrieval, eligibility assessment, and final inclusion. It is appropriate for systematic reviews and many structured evidence syntheses, but not automatically for every literature review.
Read Guide →In most structured reviews, determine whether a study is relevant and eligible before investing effort in detailed quality appraisal. Quality still matters, but its role depends on the review method and your predefined protocol.
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