SLRSystematic Literature ReviewFrom Literature Discovery to Publication

STAGE 3 · GUIDED WRITING WORKSPACE

3. Descriptive and Bibliometric Mapping

Describe the evidence base: when, where, how and by whom the included studies were produced.

Step 3 of 7
Step by step: Read the guidance, open the linked tools if needed, then record your verified decisions below. Your work is saved in this browser; export the portfolio to keep a backup.
ESTIMATED HANDS-ON TIME40–60 min
You are ready to continue when

You have 3–5 descriptive tables or charts that are generated from the coding sheet, not typed by hand.

Tools, templates and prompts for this stepLearn the software on its own guide. Return here to record verified outputs.

Key guidance

  • Typical descriptive results: publications per year, publication type and venue, country or region, research design, application domain, datasets, techniques and evaluation measures.
  • Generate counts with a pivot table or script from the coding sheet. Keep the file so reviewers can reproduce every number.
  • Use bibliometric maps (co-occurrence of keywords, co-authorship) only if they answer an RQ. Always state the software, version, thresholds and data source.
  • Report percentages with the denominator (e.g. “18 of 42 studies, 43%”).
  • Describe what the patterns mean for the evidence, e.g. “most studies were single-site pilots”, rather than listing numbers only.
Needs revision

Weak: “Figure 3 shows the number of publications per year.”

Stronger

Strong: “Publications increased sharply after 2022 (31 of 42 studies, 74%), coinciding with public release of large language models; only 4 studies predate 2020.”

Stage 3 output worksheetRecord concise, verified outputs. Keep the full working files (matrices, drafts, reference library) in your own storage.

Descriptive and Bibliometric Mapping

Every number in the descriptive results must be reproducible from the coding sheet. Record the denominator for each percentage.
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