SELECTION OF STUDIES TO BE USED IN A REVI EW ARTICLE - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF 3 REVIEW ARTICLES ON CLINICIAN INFORMATION NEEDS AND INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIOR
Y. Tsuda et C. Muranushi, SELECTION OF STUDIES TO BE USED IN A REVI EW ARTICLE - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF 3 REVIEW ARTICLES ON CLINICIAN INFORMATION NEEDS AND INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIOR, Library and Information Science, (32), 1994, pp. 1-16
One of the typical ways of condensing and cumulating the recorded know
ledge and synthesing the information is writing a review article of a
targetted subject. The first step to write a review sujested by the ex
perts in review writing is defining the subject field, specifying the
purpose, and the methods used to identify, select, and validate releva
nt studies. The purpose of this paper is to find out how much of these
requirements were followed by reviewers on 'clinicians' information n
eeds and information seeking behavior'. Three review articles on this
subject were selected, from the literature found by searches used MEDL
INE, LISA, SSCI, and SCI. They were those written by J. M. Blythe (199
2), D. E. Forsythe, et al. (1992), and R. S. Taylor (1991). Then, foll
owing six items were checked with these reviews. They were, 1) specify
ing of purpose, and methods used to identify, select and validate stud
ies to be included, 2) the range of years the included studies publish
ed, 3) types of studies used, 4) appropriateness of the titles used, a
rrengement of their content, and the studies used in each part of subd
ivisions of their contents, 5) the number of same studies used in thes
e reviews, 6) the number of 'well-known studies' (markers) in the fiel
d being used in each review. The results were as follows. 1) Only the
purpose but none of the methods were specified. 2) Three reviews showe
d different range of published years of studies included. 3) The types
of studies used by each review were also different. Blythe used only
journal articles, Forsythe, et al. used also books and papers presente
d at meetings, but the number of them were less than that of journal a
rticles. Taylor used a doctorial thesis beside these three types, but
more than half of the studies included were books. 4) Each of three re
views had emphasis of a different sub-theme that refrected on the stud
ies used. 5) Three same studies were used with all reviews and 2 other
s were used only in Blythe and Forsythe et al. 6) Out of 9 markers, 2
were used in Blythe's review, 1 with Forsythe et al's, and 3 in Taylor
's. Even though the general theme of these three reviews are identical
, emphasis on different sub-theme in each review created the divergenc
e in studies used in them. But the detailed examination revealed anoth
er reason that caused this divergence. That is authors' fail in follow
ing the steps proposed by the experts of review writing. Apparently, e
ven for writing of 'mini review' to show a background of some subject,
it is preferable to follow the proposed steps, so that a cummulation
of knowledge of that subject is always correctly presented.