Best Practice for Literature Searching

There are few tools for food science topics, and much is borrowed from health/medical research, but some of these tools may be useful to you in improving your search skills, assessing quality of evidence, and reporting your research methodology and results. If you wish to explore some other resources, the following list is aimed as a guide only. Please let us know if you wish to add to it.

• Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
• Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) – eight critical appraisal tools designed to be used when reading research.
• Equator Network – for health research.
• European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Tools – for critically appraising different study designs
• GRADE – an approach to assess evidence.
• Grey literature in the health sciences – University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
• Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tools — checklists for healthcare studies.
• Meridian – reporting standards that can help improve search quality in animal research are collated.
• National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools – Canadian resources for evidence-informed public health.
• PRISMA – focuses on the reporting of reviews evaluating randomized trials, but can also be used as a basis for reporting systematic reviews of other types of research, particularly evaluations of interventions.
• REFLECT – a checklist for livestock trials including randomised, challenge and field trials looking at production, health, and food-safety outcomes.
• STROBE-Vet statement is a modification of the STROBE statement for use in reporting studies undertaken in animal populations.
• SYREAF – a rich resource about Systematic Reviews for Animals and Food with tutorials and guidance on each step of conducting a systematic review in this area.

The following organisations and resources were consulted when preparing these guidelines:

• Health Knowledge: Finding and Appraising the Evidence
• National Collaborating Centre for Method and Tools
• University of Reading Library
• Teesside University
• The University of Queensland
• Campbell Collaboration
• Cochrane Collaboration
• Collaboration for Environmental Evidence
• The EPPI-Centre
• University of York

1. Wood H, O’Connor A, Sargeant J, Glanville J. Information retrieval for systematic reviews in food and feed topics: A narrative review. Res Synth Methods. 2018;9(4):527-539. doi:.
2. Deeks J, Frampton G, Glanville J, et al. Application of systematic review methodology to food and feed safety assessments to support decision making. EFSA J. 2010;8(6). https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1637.
3. Sargeant JM, Rajic A, Read S, Ohlsson A. The process of systematic review and its application in agri-food public-health. Prev Vet Med. 2006;75(3-4):141-151. doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2006.03.002.
4. Glanville J, Wood H, Arber M, Varley D, Frampton G, Brazier H. Technical Manual for Performing Electronic Literature Searches in Food and Feed Safety. www.efsa.europa.eu/publications. Accessed March 12, 2019.
5. O’Connor AM, Anderson KM, Goodell CK, Sargeant JM. Conducting systematic reviews of intervention questions I: Writing the review protocol, formulating the question and searching the literature. Zoonoses Public Health. 2014;61 Suppl 1:28-38. doi:10.1111/zph.12125.
6. Glanville J, Varley D, Brazier H, Arber M, Wood H, Dooley G. Inventory of Sources of Scientific Evidence Relevant to EFSA’s Risk Assessments and Information Sessions on Literature Searching Techniques (CFT/EFSA/SAS/2011/03 Inventory Report). EFSA Support Publ. 2014;11(6). doi:10.2903/sp.efsa.2014.EN-593.
7. Sampson M, McGowan J, Cogo E, Grimshaw J, Moher D, Lefebvre C. An evidence-based practice guideline for the peer review of electronic search strategies. J Clin Epidemiol. 2009;62(9):944-952. doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.10.012.
8. EFSA. Technical Report: Tools for Critically Appraising Different Study Designs, Systematic Review and Literature Searches.; 2015. doi:EFSA-Q-2014-00907.