Criminology – Systematic Review

Systematic literature searches

A structured and thorough literature search is an essential part of a systematic review. The search should be exhaustive, to not miss any relevant studies, as well transparently documented and reported. An elaborate and comprehensive search strategy, covering as many known terms for a specific topic, and should be conducted in several databases. In addition, you can use supplementary search methods, such as forward and backward chaining.

Read more on systematic literature searches at SBU

Databases for criminology

A full list of databases available at Malmö university

It is important to document your searches so that you do not have to redo your work and to be able to keep track of your search results. Many databases offer the option to create an account, allowing you to save and retrieve your searches easily.

Search techniques

In order to search effectively and find relevant articles, it is important to understand how the databases interpret your keywords and how you can combine them using operators like AND and OR.

Combining search terms with OR

experiences OR perceptions

• retrieves any of the search terms
• the more search terms you combine with OR the better you cover the research area
• your key concepts and their synonyms become a search block

Combining search terms with AND

pregnancy AND violence

• retrieves all of the concepts
• makes the search narrower

Phrase searching

"intimate partner violence"

• use if you want to search for a specific phrase
• excludes records where the search terms aren't written as a phrase
• narrows the search

Truncation

pregnan*

• often done with an asterisk (*)
• searches for word variations - example above searches both pregnant and pregnancy
• broadens the search

Building your search block strategy

When you have formulated your research question and identified your key concepts, the next step is to build your search block strategy. In the example below we have three search blocks to be combined.

Research question

Experiences of partner violence during pregnancy

We connect the synonyms with OR and the search block with AND. We also use search techniques such as phrase searching and truncation to search efficiently.

Refine your search terms

Searching articles for your systematic literature review is an iterative process where you will need to refine your search terms until you you get a search result meeting your expectations.

Using database records to develop your search strategy

When deciding on your final search terms you can use the database records for studies you have already identified.

• Search for the article in a database, click on it and have a look at the words used in the title, abstract, keywords and subject headings.
• Document all the new search terms and try them in new scoping searches.
• Add relevant new search terms to your own search strategy and repeat the search.

Doing this for a number of relevant studies can help you build your search strategy. Using the same vocabulary as the researchers are using in the title and abstract and the same vocabulary as the different databases are using when idexing their records (subject terms) will greatly improve your search strategy.

Complementary searches - citation chaining

Citation chaining, sometimes called snowballing, is a search method where you look at the bibliographies of key articles to find other related articles. The articles retrieved this way might not have been retrieved in your database searches, making it a complementary search method. There are two main types of citation chaining, backward chaining and forward chaining.

Backward & forward chaining

• Backward chaining is a good way to find earlier research on your topic. Check the reference lists of key sources, to see which works they have cited.
• Forward chaining is a good way to find more updated research on your topic. Check citations for key sources to see which works that have cited them. This works best for articles that are a few years old, as they are more likely to have been cited than newer ones.

Forward chaining in subject specific databases

Several of the subject specific databases in the list found under "Searching in databases" lets you do forward chaining.

Example from a database record in Criminology collection

Forward chaining in citation databases

The are also citation databases specifically intended for forward chaining, where you can find out how an article has been cited by other researchers.

Example from a database record in Web of Science

Forward chaining in Google Scholar

You can also use Google Scholar to do forward chaining, search for the title and click "Cited by..." to get a list of other articles where the authors have cited the article you're looking at.