SciSpace Academy
Tutorial

How to Conduct Your Systematic Literature Review Using SciSpace

Dr. Faheem UllahEnglishSystematic review

TL;DR

1-min read

This tutorial is for researchers and graduate students who are starting or managing a systematic literature review and want a faster, more structured workflow. Systematic reviews require methodological skill, information literacy and careful organisation of knowledge, which makes them some of the most time-consuming projects in academia. The tutorial walks through how SciSpace fits into each stage, from systematically identifying relevant papers to analysing and synthesising what they report.

Key takeaways

  • A systematic review typically moves from a focused research question and protocol to a documented database search, screening against inclusion criteria, data extraction, quality appraisal and synthesis, often reported following PRISMA guidance.
  • SciSpace search can help you identify candidate papers in a systematic way, reducing the time spent on initial discovery.
  • Summaries and extraction features make it quicker to pull key findings from included studies, but they should be treated as a first pass that you check against the full text.
  • Organising evidence across multiple papers is presented as the step that turns a set of studies into a coherent synthesis.
  • The emphasis throughout is on efficiency without weakening methodological soundness: AI handles labour-intensive steps such as discovery and summarisation, while eligibility decisions and data verification remain the researcher's job.
  • Documenting how and where AI tools were used lets peer reviewers and examiners assess your method, whether the review is a thesis chapter or a journal submission.
Apply it

To apply this, define your question and criteria first, then use SciSpace to search, summarise and organise studies while logging every screening decision you make yourself.

How to do it

  1. Outline the stages of your review

    Map the main stages of a systematic literature review with SciSpace, from question to synthesis. Knowing the full path helps you plan time and effort.

  2. Identify papers systematically

    Use SciSpace search to identify relevant papers in a systematic way. A structured search reduces the chance of missing important studies.

  3. Extract key findings efficiently

    Pull the key findings from each included study, using Chat with PDF where you need clarification. Efficient extraction saves hours of manual note-taking.

  4. Organise and synthesise the evidence

    Group findings across multiple papers and synthesise what they report. Organised evidence makes patterns and disagreements visible.

  5. Protect methodological rigour

    Speed up repetitive steps with AI while checking that each decision meets methodological standards. Efficiency should never compromise scientific quality.

Watch the tutorial39 min

How to Conduct a Systematic Literature Review Using SciSpacePlay video: How to Conduct a Systematic Literature Review Using SciSpace

Chapters

  1. Welcome and agenda
  2. What is a systematic literature review vs a normal review?
  3. How to write a systematic literature review: the 8 steps
  4. How many research questions should a systematic review have?
  5. How to design a search string and choose databases for an SLR
  6. PRISMA screening and snowballing: from 4,634 papers to 74
  7. How many papers should a systematic literature review include?
  8. Data extraction form and analysis methods for a systematic review
  9. How to automate data extraction from papers with SciSpace
  10. How to compare research papers critically with SciSpace
  11. How to create diagrams for a literature review with AI
  12. SciSpace SLR agent: research questions to PRISMA flow
  13. How to check an SLR for plagiarism and AI-written content
  14. Turn a paper into slides and everything SciSpace does for SLRs
  15. AI skills for researchers: prompt engineering and ethical AI use

Try this on SciSpace

Frequently asked questions

What are the main steps of a systematic literature review?

A typical systematic review defines a focused research question, writes a protocol, runs a documented search across databases, screens records against inclusion criteria, extracts data from eligible studies, appraises their quality and synthesises the results. Each step is documented so the review can be reproduced and reported transparently, often following PRISMA guidance.

Does using SciSpace replace manual screening in a systematic review?

No. SciSpace can help surface candidate papers and summarise their content, which saves reading time, but eligibility decisions and data verification remain the researcher's responsibility. Treat AI output as a first pass that you check, and record how tools were used so reviewers can assess your method.

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