Hi Zeeshan,

It all depends on the aspect you are focusing on the review.

Usually its good to start as a book where you have a table of contents, Introduction, core contents of research and how you deduce your opinion on the basis of it both pros and cons in the paper, It is good to have at least 100-200 references for your review and if you get most of the work done from recently published papers also looked at the impact factor of the paper too. After all a review should be less ambiguous. 

 I would recommend using a risk of bias assessment tool, such as the Cochrane RoB tool. It is important that you document EVERYTHING you do, for example your focused research question, your search terms, your inclusion and exclusion criteria, and your search results (no. of hits in the different databases). It is also important to document the number of articles that you exclude, that do not meet your inclusion criteria, and the reason why you exclude them.  If you are new to systematic reviews an idea would be to follow the guidelines in the PRISMA statement, http://www.prisma-statement.org/. Good luck!

Find gudelines to systematic reviews (e.g. PRISMA) and examples from the journal you want to use.

Good Luck!

you can find reporting guidelines at http://www.equator-network.org/

there are many such standards such as described in cochrane review handbook. you can find it online. 

Dear Zeeshan,

I agree with the above comments and would also recommend PRISMA, MOOSE, Nwescastle-Ottawa scale, QUADAS 2 amongst many other validated tools and methods to appraise literature.

Good luck, Alexander

I agree with others that you want to use the PRISMA diagram to assess the quality. Be sure to reference this in your methods so others know the approach that you took.

Thank you all for your valuable suggestions. Seems like everyone agrees on PRISMA the most. 

Look at the Cochrane  Risk of Bias Tool

https://sites.google.com/site/riskofbiastool/

http://handbook.cochrane.org/chapter_8/8_assessing_risk_of_bias_in_included_studies.htm

Simply, they are literature reviews that use rigorous, systematic, and transparent methods to minimize bias in the results. Transparent means that the decisions are clearly documented. Bias is a systematic distortion of an estimated effect, and can result from problematic decisions made at almost any point in the review process. We will discuss bias in more detail when we go over the steps to creating a systematic review.

How do they differ from traditional narrative reviews?

They have clear, explicit objectives with clearly stated inclusion criteria for studies to be selected (providing transparency) They use systematic searching methods that reduce the risk of selective sampling of studies, which may support preconceived conclusions (reduces risk of bias)They use  consistent evaluation of available information such as outcomes and study quality (reduces risk of bias)They give the readers more information about decisions that were made along the way, which l lows the readers to assess the quality of the review more directly (increases transparency) They may be able to provide greater precision in estimates of effect, especially if meta-analysis is involved (increases accuracy) They set the stage for updates as more data is published (because methods are transparent)

A systematic review is a type of literature review that collects and critically analyzes multiple research studies or papers. A review of existing studies is often quicker and cheaper than embarking on a new study. Researchers use methods that are selected before one or more research questions are formulated, and then they aim to find and analyze studies that relate to and answer those questions. Systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials are key in the practice of evidence-based medicine.

An understanding of systematic reviews, and how to implement them in practice, is highly recommended for professionals involved in the delivery of health care. Besides health interventions, systematic reviews may examine clinical tests, public health interventions, social interventions, adverse effects, and economic evaluations. Systematic reviews are not limited to medicine and are quite common in all other sciences where data are collected, published in the literature, and an assessment of methodological quality for a precisely defined subject would be helpful 

A systematic review aims to provide a complete, exhaustive summary of current literature relevant to a research question. The first step in conducting a systematic review is to perform a thorough search of the literature for relevant papers. The Methodology section of a systematic review will list all of the databases and citation indexes that were searched such as Web of Science, Embase, and PubMed and any individual journals that were searched. The titles and abstracts of identified articles are checked against pre-determined criteria for eligibility and relevance to form an inclusion set. This set will relate back to the research problem. Each included study may be assigned an objective assessment of methodological quality preferably by using methods conforming to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement (the current guideline)[6] or the high quality standards of Cochrane collaboration.

Systematic reviews often, but not always, use statistical techniques (meta-analysis) to combine results of eligible studies, or at least use scoring of the levels of evidence depending on the methodology used. An additional rater may be consulted to resolve any scoring differences between raters. Systematic review is often applied in the biomedical or healthcare context, but it can be applied in any field of research. Groups like the Campbell Collaboration are promoting the use of systematic reviews in policy-making beyond just healthcare.

 A systematic review uses an objective and transparent approach for research synthesis, with the aim of minimizing bias. While many systematic reviews are based on an explicit quantitative meta-analysis of available data, there are also qualitative reviews which adhere to standards for gathering, analyzing and reporting evidence.[8] The EPPI-Centre has been influential in developing methods for combining both qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews The PRISMA statement suggests a standardized way to ensure a transparent and complete reporting of systematic reviews, and is now required for this kind of research by more than 170 medical journals worldwide Recent developments in systematic reviews include realist reviews, and the meta-narrative approach These approaches try to overcome the problems of methodological and epistemological heterogeneity in the diverse literatures existing on some subjects.  

Very good points raised and clarified by Jennifer above. Important to distinguish between a well or poorly designed, well or poorly conducted, and well or poorly reported study. Not always easy. I also just want to add two more tools, which are useful for assessing the quality of systematic reviews, not individual studies. One is called CASP and the other is called AMSTAR. Google and you will find the references. Lastly, I don't think GRADE has been mentioned - the dominating system for appraising the quality of the whole body of evidence, or more specifically, the certainty or confidence that we can place in the findings. Particularly suitable for SRs of interventions, in my opinion. Another, less widespread, approach is FORM, which stands for Formulating Recommendations Matrix. 

We have recently published guidelines for conducting systematic literature reviews. We used the example of SCM, but it can be adapted to other disciplines. You can find our article on my ResearchGate page. Christian F. Durach, Joakim Kembro & Andreas Wieland (2017), A new paradigm for systematic literature reviews in supply chain management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, Vol. 53, Issue 4.