Systematic Literature Review and Meta Analysis

Systematic literature review with meta analysis is one of the most important methods used to review the scientific evidence on a topic. It starts with a literature search. If you're in the medical world, that might mean using PubMed (but there are other search engines). The selected studies need to be appraised. Appraisal of papers is important because different study types may provide different strengths of evidence. So Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) provide very strong evidence while case control studies weak evidence. Meta analysis is the most common method to synthesise quantitative data. The synthesis is usually presented as a forrest plot. So if you're doing a PhD or any other research, doing a lit review is an important first step.