If you are having difficulty finding a suitable topic for your review, try thinking about the following:
Once you have your topic, put it into the format of a question or questions to be answered by the literature.
Essentially a research question puts forward an hypothesis about a relationship, such as the relationship between an intervention and an outcome. For example: In P (population group) does I (intervention) result in O (outcome)? or Will I perform better than C at achieving O in population P?
For an overview of the main steps to creating a good research question see the online library resources. See also this online video on YouTube.
If you would like to try generative AI such as ChatGPT to assist with developing your research question, see this video by an academic language advisor in the faculty of education for some advice. You could also use Scopus AI (via Scopus database) and look at the emerging themes - potential hypotheses listed for your topic.
The research question will guide the development of your search strategy so it's important that you take time to investigate the suitability of your proposed question.
This guide will provide a sample search for a health/medical research question, as well as for an education/social science research question. Choose which section you would like to work through.
Doing some scoping searches are an essential step to ensure that your question addresses a gap in the literature, i.e. it has not already been answered in another review (or clinical guideline or other evidence synthesis). Scoping the question will also help you understand the quantity of existing literature i.e. whether your question is specific and focused enough to be feasible.
Scoping searches help you to see the main terminology used in the discussion of a topic, and informs the subsequent development of a comprehensive search strategy. This preliminary searching is non-systematic in its nature and is not documented.
Scoping searches usually involve a series of very targeted searches, perhaps looking for your main keywords in the article title. You might also look for examples of review articles on similar topics, as these might be useful for gaining an overview of a facet of your own topic.
Sources for scoping searches include search engines such as Google Scholar, large inter-disciplinary databases such as Scopus or Proquest central, or a discipline-specific database that you are familiar with. In addition, AI tools may be used at the scoping stage of the review. The library has a subscription to Scopus AI (in Scopus select the Scopus AI tab).
Your scoping searches should enable you to locate a 'gold set' of relevant articles that you would expect to include in your review. (This may also be called a 'sample set' or a 'sentinel set' of key papers).
This gold set is a curated collection of highly relevant papers for your research question.These articles are important as a reliable foundation for compiling your search terms.
The gold set is also needed to test the strength of the search strategy that you will later develop. This testing is a hallmark of a rigorous and comprehensive search. Unless you test your search on a target set of papers that are definitely relevant, you have no tangible means of assessing whether you have any errors or omissions in your search strategy!
Your gold set should be located during the preliminary 'scoping searches' discussed above. How you locate it is unimportant, but don't skip this step as it is crucial.