Search

As systematic reviews become more common in the social sciences journal literature, it is important for social science librarians to be familiar with this methodology. Knowledge of characteristics of systematic reviews that have been published in the journal literature can help to inform librarians as they guide researchers to adopt good practices. This paper analyzes a collection of 164 systematic reviews gleaned from the International Bibliography of Social Sciences database for the period 2017 to 2019 from journals in the fields of anthropology, business and economics, communications, education, political science, psychology, social sciences (comprehensive), and sociology. The methodology of each review was checked to answer questions about reporting of keywords and search terms, reporting of inclusion/exclusion criteria, time period searched, external guidelines referenced, initial number of studies retrieved and number of studies included in the review, and number and names of databases searched. Details are provided for the individual subject categories, and the implications of these findings for social science librarians are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]