Q: How do I ensure that the Introduction and Discussion of my systematic review don't overlap with those of the original article?

Detailed Question -

I am writing an original article for instances where the discussions for the results conflict in existing literature. The area is interesting, as no systematic review or meta-analysis has been done yet. However, if I write the systematic review, I am concerned that the introduction and discussion sections partly overlap with those in the original article. Is there any way to resolve this?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

It seems you are doing some sort of ‘meta-research,’ that is, ‘research about research.’ If so, that’s an interesting field of study.

However, one part of your query is not entirely clear. It seems you are basing your systematic review on either a single paper or a handful of papers. If so, that may be a problem and also the reason why you are facing a challenge with making your introduction and discussion different from the original paper(s). A systematic review, or any kind of secondary research, has to be based on several papers, not a handful. This is to ensure you have captured what different studies say about the problem under study, that is, obtained different perspectives. If you are basing it on a handful of papers, you may not get multiple perspectives. In fact, in that case, the study may not warrant a systematic review.

This could be one reason why your study seems to be novel and no one has done this earlier – because the focus seems to be too narrow. The focus of any study should neither be too broad or too narrow. If it’s too broad, you will be going on researching; if it’s too narrow, there may be very little to research.

I am not sure at what stage your research is, but if you aren’t able to find more papers to include in your review, you need to go back and come up with a different question. That may perhaps lead to a systematic review of a different topic or even to a different kind of study.

For help with some of the things just discussed, you may refer to the following resources:

Coming to your other challenge (of making the introduction and discussion sessions) different, I believe once you resolve the issue of the (focus of the) question, this should not be a matter. Also, note that these two sections in particular offer the greatest scope for being different from other studies as you need to provide your perspective on the topic and therefore write it in your own words.

For help with writing these sections, you may refer to the following resources:

Hope that helps. All the best for whatever you decide.

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