A Correspondence with a Scientist

Kaitlyn p -

I finally finished checking the references and citing studies of all my included studies! I have a complete set of 351 studies to analyze in my systematic review! Well, almost. The final step of making sure I get all the possible information for my systematic review is checking if there’s any applicable research that’s currently being performed or that hasn’t been published yet. For this, I need a correspondence with a scientist!

It might be unfair to call this a “correspondence,” because this is only my part of the conversation, but I sent emails to five authors of studies I included in the review already. I tried to pick researchers who authored a lot of my included studies or whose studies came up frequently, in hopes that they focus on work with IVF and environmental toxins and might have current research in that area. I explained that I was performing a systematic review and asked if they had or knew of any unpublished or ongoing work that might be relevant to my research. If they do, I can add this information to my review.

Today, I will finally start reading the full text of studies, collecting data, and writing my paper! This is the part of the research that I’m most excited for, so I’m glad the time has come, but I’m also glad I’ve been so thorough in my search for relevant studies because I want my systematic review to be as comprehensive and well-done as possible. I’m leaving for Spring Break vacation today, so I won’t be able to respond to comments until Thursday (when I’ll be home), and it’s possible that I won’t post a new blog next week if I don’t get enough work done for blog content on Thursday and Friday. Whenever I post next, I’ll get to talk all about the data extraction process from the full text of studies and PRISMA flow diagrams!

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Comments:

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    christina_v
    Hi Katie! 351 studies sounds really impressive! Reaching out to researchers is a great idea, and I hope you get some helpful responses. Now that you're diving into data collection, what part of the extraction process are you most excited about? I hope you have a great Spring Break—looking forward to your next update!
    March 9, 2025 at 5:29 pm - Reply
    pranati_c
    Hi Katie! Hoping that your correspondences are successful! As you prepare to read 371 studies (which is an insane amount), what strategies are you using to streamline the process?
    March 10, 2025 at 12:03 pm - Reply
    tisya_o
    Hi Katie! Getting through 351 studies sounds like a lot of hard work! Were most of the sets from peer-reviewed published journals? If so, how would unpublished and ongoing research studies fit in with the rest of the set? Could factors such as incomplete data affect your review?
    March 12, 2025 at 6:24 pm - Reply
    kaitlyn_p
    Hi Christina! Thanks! I'm really looking forward to synthesizing the information from each individual study into one section where people can read about all the toxins that could impact an outcome of IVF!
    March 13, 2025 at 10:14 am - Reply
    kaitlyn_p
    Hi Pranati! I'm using an Excel spreadsheet to track each piece of information from each study, and I'm going study by study. I have columns in my spreadsheet for study title, author, year, journal, participants being studied, recruitment procedure, toxin(s) being studied, means of exposure and where the toxin(s) are found, methods of exposure data collection, study design, methods, outcome(s) of interest and their definitions, how confounding variable(s)/covariates were addressed, results, conflicts of interest, any additional notes, and dates of data extraction.
    March 13, 2025 at 10:18 am - Reply
    kaitlyn_p
    Hi Tisya! For the most part, I only need the results and information about the methodology for each study, so as long as unpublished and ongoing work includes those things, I can use them. I wouldn't be able to use ongoing research if it had no results at all yet. Otherwise, I could include whatever results (like one outcome) they had already.
    March 13, 2025 at 10:23 am - Reply

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