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Write The Review

Writing The Review | Using PRISMA | Selecting a Credible Journal | Getting Writing & Publishing Support

Writing The Review

At this stage, you completed screening, collecting, cleaning, and synthesizing your data and are ready to start writing your manuscript. 

Evidence synthesis manuscripts follow the same structure as original research articles (e.g., IMRaD – Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) and include an abstract. Refer to your selected journal’s author guidelines and policies for further information about formatting requirements.  

For writing the abstract, use the PRISMA extension for Abstracts, a 12-item checklist to help consolidate the key information into a short abstract structure. Always follow the word count limitations and other requirements from your selected journal. The PRISMA-Abstract checklist is a tool to help you! 

Supplemental materials 

The following items are strongly recommended for inclusion as supplemental materials with your review manuscript (JBI, Cochrane): 

  • Final search strategies used for all databases searched (best prepared by the Librarian)
  • Table of records excluded during full text screening (can be exported from Covidence)
  • Final data collection form used
  • Completed PRISMA checklist
  • Full risk of bias assessment results for each included record 

You may also need to include additional tables and figures that do not fit into the main manuscript. The journal’s author instructions will dictate the file format to use and how to submit the supplemental materials. 

Remember, if you worked with a NIH Librarian on your evidence synthesis, they would send you text to include in the methods and results sections, help complete the PRISMA Flow Diagram, format the search strategies for including as supplemental materials, and check to ensure the PRISMA checklist was properly used and cited. 

Learn more about writing your evidence synthesis review manuscript: 

Authorship 

If a NIH Librarian worked on and contributed to your evidence synthesis review, authorship is required.  

To acknowledge other individuals who helped with conducting the review, see the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor’s (ICMJE) “Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors” to help with determining what are author-level contributions vs. including in the acknowledgements. 

Also, use CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to represent the roles typically filled by contributors to research outputs (i.e., review manuscript). There are 14 roles. A contributor may fulfill multiple roles. Check your selected journal’s author instructions to see how they may want author contributions to be noted. 

Using PRISMA

As you write your evidence synthesis manuscript, use the appropriate PRISMA checklist. PRISMA stands for – Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses – and is a reporting guideline*. PRISMA does not tell you how to conduct the review. Completing the appropriate PRISMA checklist as you write will help ensure you include the correct information as part of your submitted manuscript. 

*Reporting guidelines are available for many types of studies (e.g., randomized clinical trials, case reports, preclinical/animal, observational) and provide a minimum set of items to report in a manuscript to increase transparency and reproducibility. Learn more about reporting guidelines from the EQUATOR Network. 

Scoping Reviews 

Use the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist and explanatory paper for writing your scoping review. 

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 

Use the PRISMA checklist, explanation and elaboration article, and expanded checklist which provide additional detail and information on the items to include. 

Other Types of Systematic Reviews 

There are PRISMA extensions available for specific types of systematic reviews such as equity, diagnostic test accuracy, harms, individual patient data, COSMIN for outcome measurement instruments, network meta-analyses, and others. 

If you have questions about using PRISMA, please contact the NIH Librarian who worked with you on your review or complete our online request form. 

Selecting a Credible Journal

There are several important factors to consider when selecting a credible journal to submit your manuscript. We recommend you spend some time looking into different journals to select the best fit for your evidence synthesis. 

Please see the NIH Library’s Publication Consultation Service for factors to consider in selecting your journal, how to select a credible journal, and resources available to help you do so.  

Writing & Publishing Support

Additional resources and support are available to NIH and HHS staff for writing their manuscript. 

Citation management 

You will need to cite a lot of articles in your review manuscript and the journal you select will dictate the citation style to use (e.g., Vancouver, AMA, APA). Use a citation management tool such as EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to collect, organize, cite, and format your in-text citations and bibliography.  

NIH and HHS staff should contact your IT staff to have EndNote downloaded to your US government computer. For help with using EndNote, contact the NIH Librarian that assisted with your evidence synthesis review or submit an online request for help. 

Data sharing 

Many journals require data availability or sharing statements included with the manuscript and/or deposit of the review data in an online data repository (e.g., Open Science Framework, figshare, etc.). Check your journal’s author instructions to determine their data sharing requirements. 

Editing support 

NIH and HHS staff can request free editing assistance for their review manuscript from our Editing Service. 

Plagiarism checking 

Once you have a near final version of your manuscript, request a free plagiarism checking report from the NIH Library. iThenticate, a plagiarism detection software, is used to identify missed citations or paraphrased wording that is too similar to a published source.  

You will also want to include the following additional items in your manuscript.