Searching the Chemical Literature: a Brief Guide to a Comprehensive Literature Review (with particular reference to analytical chemistry)

D Thorburn Burns and MJ Walker

a Institute of Global Food Security, The Queen’s University of Belfast, BT9 5HN, UK,
  (to whom correspondence should be addressed, d.t.burns@qub.ac.uk)
b Michael Walker Consulting Ltd., Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland BT36 5WP

Summary

A literature review yields good knowledge of prior work on a topic and is essential to efficient working and publication of current work in a fair and transparent manner. There have been many advances in access to the literature in recent years and it appeared timely to the authors to offer some up-to-date guidance. Thus, a brief systematic four-stage process is outlined in order to produce a comprehensive, transparent and accurate review of all relevant earlier work prior to any discussion of claims of originality of concepts or of applications in publications of recent research findings.

Full text of paper

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