The protocol comes before the searching
Inclusion and exclusion criteria are written down and agreed first, because criteria adjusted after you have seen what came back are not criteria at all, they are preferences. Registration where your program expects it, and the question stated in whatever structured form your field uses.
This ordering feels bureaucratic and it is the entire basis of the method. A review whose criteria moved during screening cannot honestly claim to be systematic, and it is one of the first things an examiner or a reviewer asks about, because it is the difference between a method and a search.
The search is a document rather than an activity
Every database, the exact string used in each one, the date it was run and any limits applied. Databases differ in syntax and in their subject headings, so a string is translated rather than pasted across, and that translation is part of what gets reported in the write-up.
Recorded properly it can be re-run months later when a committee asks whether anything new has appeared, which happens more often than students expect and is close to impossible if the original search was never written down in a form anybody could repeat.
Screening, and numbers that add up
Title and abstract first, then full text, with a reason recorded for every full-text exclusion. Where two screeners are required, the procedure for resolving disagreement is decided in advance rather than settled informally when it arises.
Then a flow diagram whose figures actually reconcile, which is the first thing any reviewer checks because it can be checked in seconds. Identified, screened, excluded with reasons, included. Where those do not add up, nothing downstream of them gets trusted, and the usual cause is reconstruction rather than dishonesty.
There is one more reason to keep the record as you go. A systematic review has no data collection and therefore no natural pauses in it, so the screening stage arrives as a single undifferentiated block of work with nothing forcing it forward. That is exactly the condition under which doctoral projects stall, and dates against each stage matter here as much as they do for a study with participants in it.
Three steps, then the record keeps itself.
Send the question and the requirements
Your question and whatever your program specifies about method, registration and reporting standard.
Fix the protocol first
Criteria written and agreed before any screening begins, so the method can be defended as systematic rather than merely thorough.
Record as you go
Strings, dates, counts and exclusion reasons captured at each stage rather than reconstructed once the screening is finished.
Queries on record.
Is a systematic review easier than primary research?
It is different rather than easier and frequently takes longer. There is no data collection and usually no review board, but the screening burden is substantial and the documentation requirements are strict. Students who choose it expecting a shortcut generally discover that the screening stage is where several months quietly go.
My search returned thousands of records. What now?
That normally means the concepts are too broad rather than that the field is enormous, and it is fixed by tightening the string rather than by screening heroically. Adding a population limit, or using the database's own subject headings instead of free-text terms, will often cut a result set by an order of magnitude without losing anything relevant.
Do I need a second screener?
Your program decides, and many require it for at least a sample of records. Where it is required, the method for resolving disagreement has to be stated in advance. Where it is not required, saying plainly that screening was carried out by one person is far better than phrasing it to imply otherwise.
Why do these come back most often?
Because the numbers in the flow diagram do not reconcile. It is the first thing checked and the easiest thing to check, and a discrepancy there raises a question about everything that follows. Almost always the cause is that counts were reconstructed at the end rather than recorded at each stage as it happened.
Can a systematic review be a DNP project?
For many programs yes, and the expectation differs from a research doctorate in what happens afterwards. A practice doctorate usually wants the synthesis translated into a recommendation for a named setting, with an implementation plan attached. Confirm what your own program expects before settling on the design, because the two produce genuinely different documents.
Elsewhere in the hall.
Send the assignment and the deadline.
A specialist credentialed in your own field reads what you actually have and replies within two hours with a plan and a price. The reading costs nothing, and if the honest answer is that we are not the right hall for it, you will get that instead.
