Systematic reviews in Littview

Littview picks up where your database search ends and carries the review through to its report. This article is the map: seven stages, one or two sentences each, with a link to the guides for that stage. Nothing here assumes a fixed number of reviewers — the same workflow runs solo or with a large research group.

The seven stages

1. Create a project and add members. One project is one review. Invite the people who will review with you from Manage Members, or work alone. See How to create your first project and Roles and permissions.

2. Import your search results. Upload your database exports — BibTeX, RIS, PubMed (MEDLINE), EndNote XML. Each upload becomes a library, and full-text PDFs can be attached in bulk at any point, including from Zotero. See Importing Papers.

3. Remove duplicates. The same paper usually arrives from more than one database. Littview groups the likely copies so you can resolve them one at a time or all at once; removed duplicates stay out of screening and are counted in your PRISMA diagram. See Deduplication.

4. Set up screening. Enter your inclusion and exclusion criteria, choose how many independent reviews each paper gets, and distribute the papers — Littview balances the workload across the reviewers you select. See Screening.

5. Screen papers and settle disagreements. Reviewers work through their own queue, choosing Include or Exclude and selecting the criteria that justify it, with notes and PDF highlights optional. Where reviewers disagree, the paper becomes a conflict and the Owner records the final decision with every vote and its reasoning side by side. See Screening and Conflicts.

6. Extract the data. Build your extraction form, distribute the included papers, and fill the form with the PDF beside it, linking answers to the passages they came from. With two or more extractors, every paper also gets an independent verifier. See Data Extraction.

7. Report the review. A PRISMA diagram, an evidence table of every included paper against your extraction fields, and Methods and Results drafts — all built from your project’s actual state. See PRISMA and Reports.

What carries through the whole review

Each decision keeps its justification. The criteria a reviewer selected, the notes they wrote, and the passages they highlighted stay attached to the paper from screening to the final report — which is why the PRISMA counts, the evidence table, and the report drafts need no re-entering of numbers, and why you can audit any paper long after the review is finished.

Tip

AI can assist at almost every stage — screening suggestions, conflict recommendations, extraction with evidence, report drafting. It is optional, can be switched on or off per member, and every suggestion is labeled with its reasoning; the decision stays yours. AI features use AI credits from your plan.