If so, how to do this - with asterisks and then a subsection in the reference list?
I don't see journals giving much guidance, but when you have 30+ studies this seems like a helpful thing to do - but is it not done?
This is an interesting question, and it makes sense if we want to make our reviews more accessible to those who want to read them in more depth (i.e., cross-checking our claims and assessments with the resources we cite).
I guess it depends on at least two things: (1) the field where you are working on/where the review categorically "belongs" and, in a more superficial level, (2) the general citation type that you are using (e.g., "Abrilla et al. (2021)" versus "[1]").
In the biomedical, clinical and public health fields, I have yet to see your suggestion being performed regardless of the general citation type used. I won't be surprised, however, if this is done in the social sciences.
If your reference listing style utilizes the "Author (year)" in-text citation, I think that sub-grouping your references into "Studies Analyzed for Review"/"Included Studies"/"Excluded Studies" and "Non-Analyzed References" (or whatever better term that you have) right away is fine. However, if your reference listing style utilizes numbers as means for in-text citation, I think that such subdivision at the References section will somehow be awkward... perhaps just keep the list undivided and ordered by citation order and include some note/marker there on whether the particular reference was analyzed/included/excluded for review or was simply cited for background/context/discussion. Including a special marker in the in-text citations to indicate the kind of referred material seems nice. Then again, there are no guideline for this that I know of, so I guess that gives you some freedom to do this as long as you are consistent. I am also not sure if exerting such prudent effort on your part will make a difference, but that belief of mine is largely because I am used to the status quo of not explicitly differentiating between the two in terms of citation and reference listing.
Good luck!
Thank you for your great question, John Butler . If you use the APA citation style, things are stated quite clearly:
* Don't put an asterisk with in-text citations
* Mention studies included in your literature review/ meta-analysis (not the ones you excluded along the way) in you reference list and mark them with an asterisk
* Define what the asterisk means below the header "References" above the reference list
Hope that helps.
Hello John Butler it depends where you are going to present your data. For instance if is for an article publication might worthy if you check journal and referencing guidelines on what they recommend. But if is for you dissertation what I suggest and I did for my PhD thesis was created a table with all articles included in the systematic review and I have created a table with an ID for each article. In this table I put the reference for each one and an ID such as A1, A2, A3 and so on. For each time I had to mention theses articles rather than put the reference for them I used for example: A1 was a randomised controlled trial with 100 patients.... A2 was a single group before and after study.
I hope this makes sense.
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