I tried to get this book to review when it first emerged in 2023, as I have a great interest in systematic reviews. I am surely an expert, as I am charged by this journal with promoting such submissions and get to act as a second reviewer on very many. Indeed, many years ago, I was also on the Editorial Board of Clinical Otolaryngology and landed with exactly the same duties. I well recall my editorial when I quoted the line “A random rather than fixed effects model can still salvage heterogenous data” although without the foggiest idea, back then anyway, what that meant. This book will tell you.
Now this is an inexpensive paperback, and we all know what the month of November will likely do our finances in order to fill that national “Black Hole”, so I thought spend it while one can. I was immediately won over and kept muttering to myself (like that Meg Ryan line from a very dated film) “Oh yes, yes, yes” as I read it. Countless features I seek were stressed. Pose a research question and I would add follow it with an interrogation mark. Write the abstract first. Whatever PRISMA tells you about not including reviews in your evidence, do save them from your search, for use in the Discussion to demonstrate any novelty in your work. Give the dates of the search in the Methods section and do not let it get over 6 months out of date. Remember your systematic review is not a textbook chapter. There were so many such pearls of wisdom. Let me add one more. Do not repeat all the data from Results in your Discussion, indeed try to replace all numbers with words. This book is a model of Instructions to authors, of course, but is just as good at helping the reader to evaluate the quality and significance of what has been published.
I will admit that, within minutes, I learnt a strategy for searching PubMed that has proved transformative, but I would be too embarrassed to say what it was, as so basic. Remember that I am an authority on this topic, surely? I will admit I have never heard of an Umbrella Review and could not tell a scoping from a mapping review, indeed I am still not too sure about that.
The first half of the book concentrates on the five steps to creation of a systematic review and meta-analysis. The second half is a series of chapters, each a case study of studying topics such as Accuracy of a Test or Effectiveness of a Therapy. There is many a forest or funnel plot, all very well explained for the novice. Obviously, any reviewer should start with the Introduction, here telling us what is new in this, the third edition. But the final chapter title proved immediately irresistible. “Publishing Systematic Reviews; Tips and Tricks for Convincing Journal Editors and Peer Reviewers” and my only hesitation was that all such are the really experts on such research that is suggested here. The Case Study offered shows how a 50,000-word Master’s Thesis was reduced to a 3000 word count journal submission and duly published, but the generic advice for any submission is invaluable.
Most books I get for review end up in the local giant Hospital’s Library (except for the last Scott-Brown, which they accidentally sent off to Africa, with a box load of obsolete books). This one stays with me for some time as I shall read it a few more times. Then I will be an expert.
