An ordinary literature review reflects the author's own judgement about which papers deserve discussion. A systematic one is designed so its search and selection process can be repeated by someone else -- here is what that actually requires.
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An ordinary, or narrative, literature review reflects the author's own judgement about which papers deserve discussion. A systematic literature review is designed so its search and selection process is itself documented and can be repeated by someone else — carried out under a protocol fixed in advance, its search strings, databases, and inclusion criteria decided before screening starts, so its coverage can be audited and its process repeated.
| Narrative review | Systematic review | |
|---|---|---|
| Search process | Informal, guided by the author's judgement | Documented protocol, fixed before screening begins |
| Coverage | Whatever the author happened to find | Every record from a stated set of databases and search strings |
| Repeatable by others | Not reliably | Yes, in principle |
| Typical length | A few pages inside a thesis chapter | Often a standalone publication in its own right |
| Best suited to | A short course project's literature chapter | A dedicated research contribution, or a full PhD literature chapter |
Narrative and systematic reviews are both legitimate. The choice depends on the depth the project actually needs, not on which one sounds more impressive.
In software engineering and computer science, the most widely taught framework for running a systematic review is the one set out by Barbara Kitchenham, which splits the review into planning the review, conducting it, and reporting it, so the protocol stays visible alongside the results. A more general checklist used across disciplines is the PRISMA statement, which specifies a standard set of items a systematic review report should contain, including the kind of screening-funnel diagram covered in the previous topic.
A full Kitchenham-style review may be more than a course project can afford in the time available. What's worth keeping at any scale is the underlying discipline: write the search strings and inclusion criteria down before screening starts, and keep a running count of how many papers were found, screened, and included at each stage.
Explain the difference between a narrative review and a systematic review, and say which one Kitchenham's framework is built to produce.
