Conducting Health Sciences Review Articles

As you write a literature review you may find yourself wanting to write statements that you know to be true, but for which you have no specific article to cite. Some common statements of this type:

• Numbers and percents. X number of people or X% of people in the US have this disease.
• The typical symptoms of a disease, or its typical course, or its typical treatments.
• How a medical device or technology functions.

It is extremely hard to find this type of data in articles. Save yourself time by using other types of information resources to find this "fill-in" data. You should use this sparingly, though, as the majority of the information in your literature review should come from primary sources.