How To Do A Medical Literature Review Using Google Scholar | Fast Clean Reproducible

Doing A Medical Literature Review With Google Scholar: Setup

Sign in to your Google account, open Scholar, and switch on the tools that save time later. Two tweaks make a difference: turn on library links and enable one-click citation export. Both live under the menu at the top left.

Here is a guide you can keep near your keyboard while you work.

Need a refresher on the built-in features? The official Google Scholar help page explains field search, sorting, and the side drawer.

Build A Clear Clinical Question

Write one sentence that states the patient group, the exposure or intervention, any comparator, and the main outcomes. This PICO style keeps your query sharp and your screening fair.

List synonyms for each part before you touch the search box. Fold in lay terms and clinical terms. For drug names, add brand and generic forms. For conditions, plan both acronyms and full names.

Create A Compact Term Bank

Open a scratch doc and set four short lines: population, exposure or intervention, comparator, and outcomes. Add two to five terms under each. This is your menu for the next step.

Map Terms To MeSH

Scholar does not use MeSH itself, yet MeSH helps you find better wording. Look up candidate terms in the MeSH Browser to grab standard spellings and near neighbors. Copy useful entry terms into your term bank.

How To Use Google Scholar For A Medical Literature Review: Search Strings That Work

Now build a query from your term bank. Use quotes for exact phrases, OR to join synonyms, and minus signs to remove noise. Keep each group tidy by wrapping it in parentheses.

Starter Patterns

("nonalcoholic fatty liver disease" OR "NAFLD") AND (metformin OR "biguanide") AND (trial OR randomized OR placebo)

(asthma AND "inhaled corticosteroid") AND (children OR pediatric) AND (adherence OR compliance)

Use intitle: to pull results with a word in the title, e.g., intitle:randomized. Target authors with author:"Jane Doe". Narrow to a journal with quotes, e.g., "New England Journal of Medicine". The help page above lists where to find field search if the side panel is hidden on small screens.

Trim Fast When Results Are Messy

Add a minus sign in front of off-topic words: ketogenic -epilepsy. Switch the date slider to the last 5–10 years to keep the set fresh. Try Sort by date for scans of breaking trials, then jump back to relevance for depth.

Work The Right-Side Links

The right edge of each result often shows a PDF link, a publisher page, or your library. If a page asks for payment, try the arrow next to All versions. That opens other hosts of the same paper, which often include an author postprint.

Using Google Scholar For A Medical Literature Review: Screening And Logging

Decide on short include rules before you screen. Skim titles and abstracts first. Save a record to My library only when it matches your rules. When in doubt, save it for a slow read.

Labels That Keep You Moving

Create two or three labels in your library: screen, keep, and exclude. Move items between labels as your view firms up. You can bulk export a label later.

Write Tiny Notes

Open each saved item and jot one line on why you kept it or set it aside. These notes feed your methods section and your flow diagram later.

What To Log For Each Record

Use a sheet or a spreadsheet. Keep the fields lean so you do not stall. The template table sits near the end for quick copy–paste.

Follow Cited By And Related Articles

Click Cited by under a good paper to see later articles that point to it. Use the Search within citing articles box to look for your main outcome or subgroup. The Related articles link finds near neighbors that use the same language.

When you find recurring authors or trial groups, add quick author searches to your plan: author:"Garcia M" NAFLD. That pulls clusters you might miss with topic terms alone.

Export And Manage References

When your keep label looks solid, head to My library and export that label. Choose RIS or BibTeX for reference managers, or CSV for a quick sheet. If you use Zotero or EndNote, the RIS option is usually smooth.

Inside a result, the quotation mark icon opens ready-made cites in several styles. Treat these as a draft and check names, titles, and page ranges before you paste.

If you plan to refresh the review later, keep your labels and alerts in place. That way you can repeat the export in minutes.

Report Methods With PRISMA

As you build the set, your notes should match the reporting items that readers expect. The PRISMA 2020 checklist lists the items to include in your write-up and the flow from records found to studies included.

Keep counts of total hits, the number screened by title and abstract, the number assessed in full text, and the final studies in the synthesis. Your screening log and export files give you those numbers with little extra work.

Common Snags And Clean Fixes

Too Many Near Duplicates

Use quotes around core phrases and add one or two context words. Try intitle: for terms like intitle:randomized or a disease name.

No Access To Full Text

Click All versions to check author posts. Turn on library links in Settings. If your library uses proxy links, add that option under Library links so the right panel shows a friendly button.

Query Drift

When your results slide off topic, paste your term bank into the search box and rebuild the query from those pieces. Keep the structure but swap out weak synonyms.

Alert Overload

Create one alert on your best query and one on a flagship paper’s Cited by page. File alert emails under a Gmail label so you can scan weekly without clutter.

Mini Checklist Before You Share

• Your question, scope, and include rules are written in one short block.
• The main query, year range, and any field limits appear in your methods.
• Counts for hits, screened records, full-text reads, and included studies are logged.
• Exported files (RIS/BibTeX/CSV) are saved with the date and the label name.
• Notes explain why core studies were kept or set aside.
• Two alerts are live: one for query, one for Cited by.

Power Moves That Save Time

Mix Topic And Field Filters

Use field search to place words in the title field while your synonyms sit in the general box. This cuts noise fast when a term is common in casual use.

Test One Piece At A Time

Run the population alone, then add the exposure, then the outcome. Watch how the set changes. Keep the version that gives clean, on-topic titles in the first two pages.

Use A Short Stop List

During screening, note two or three words that always pull junk. Add them with a minus sign to your query. Keep the list tiny so you do not hide good material.

Lean On One Trusted Standard

When you face tricky choices, lean on a standard text for review methods used in your field. Mirror that approach in your notes so choices are easy to follow.

Sample Run: From Question To Shortlist

Pick a topic to see the flow. Say you want trials on vitamin D to prevent acute respiratory infections in adults. Write a one-line plan: adults, vitamin D supplements, no supplement or placebo, respiratory infection rates.

Draft a term bank: adults, adult; vitamin D, cholecalciferol; upper respiratory infection, respiratory tract infection, ARI, cold, influenza. Stage the query in layers and watch the first two pages for fit.

Stage 1

Start with topic words only: ("respiratory tract infection" OR ARI OR cold OR influenza) AND ("vitamin D" OR cholecalciferol). If pets or lab models creep in, add -mice -rat -canine.

Stage 2

Add people and trials: (randomized OR trial OR placebo) AND (adult OR adults). Set a 2015–2025 range. Sort by relevance.

Stage 3

Open strong hits in tabs and tap Save. Label screen. Add one-line notes like “pediatric sample” or “pregnancy only.” Use Cited by on a flagship trial to pull newer work.

Stage 4

Move best items to keep and export RIS. Import to your manager, merge duplicates, and mark any trial that lacks full text for a library request.

Write A Clean Methods Paragraph

Readers like a methods block they can scan in seconds. Use clear verbs and list steps in the order you ran them. A fast model:

We searched Google Scholar on 13 September 2025 using ("respiratory tract infection" OR ARI OR cold OR influenza) AND ("vitamin D" OR cholecalciferol) AND (randomized OR trial OR placebo) AND (adult OR adults) with a 2015–2025 year range, sorted by relevance. Title and abstract screening followed the include rules above. Full texts were located via library links and All versions. Items were labeled in My library as screen or keep; decisions and reasons were logged in a sheet. We exported the keep label as RIS for citation management.

Glossary Of Quick Commands

Quotes: phrase match, e.g., "acute kidney injury". OR: link synonyms, e.g., (uti OR "urinary tract infection"). Minus: drop a word, e.g., stroke -hemorrhagic. intitle: restrict to titles, e.g., intitle:randomized. author: limit by author, e.g., author:"M Bossuyt". site: aim at a host, e.g., site:who.int. Since year: pick Since 2021 in the left panel to see newer items first.

When Scholar Is Not Enough

For device safety, trial registries, or drug labels, plan a second stop in a domain index such as PubMed or ClinicalTrials.gov. The same playbook applies: set a question, stage terms, and log changes.

Keep Your Review Reproducible

Save your query with the date and the year range. Keep exported RIS/BibTeX files in a folder with the same date. Add the screening sheet and the short notes you wrote inside My library. This bundle lets a colleague rebuild the set without guesswork.

Screening Log Template

Quality Checks That Take Minutes

Skim two pages of results for drift. Tighten the title filter or drop a weak synonym if needed. Open the first and last item in your export and check names, page ranges, and DOIs. Scan for study overlap; if two papers report the same trial, keep the richer report and note the link.

Final Notes

Google Scholar can feed a tight medical review when you pair clean queries with tidy logs. Set your tools once, search in planned steps, and keep your record simple. That mix brings speed and makes updates painless.