SLR

A systematic literature review (often referred to as a systematic review) is a means of identifying, evaluating and interpreting all available research relevant to a particular research question, or topic area, or phenomenon of interest. Individual studies contributing to a systematic review are called primary studies; a systematic review is a form of secondary study.

Systematic reviews start by defining a review protocol that specifies the research question being addressed and the methods that will be used to perform the review. 
• Systematic reviews are based on a defined search strategy that aims to detect as much of the relevant literature as possible. 
• Systematic reviews document their search strategy so that readers can assess their rigour and the completeness and repeatability of the process (bearing in mind that searches of digital libraries are almost impossible to replicate). 
• Systematic reviews require explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria to assess each potential primary study. 
• Systematic reviews specify the information to be obtained from each primary study including quality criteria by which to evaluate each primary study. 
• A systematic review is a prerequisite for quantitative meta-analysis.

Plan (why?, What?, How?, Evaluate) -> Conduct (Identify all, select primary, assess quality, data extraction and monitoring, synthesis) -> Report (how, format, evaluate)

The need for a systematic review arises from the requirement of researchers to summarise all existing information about some phenomenon in a thorough and unbiased manner. This may be in order to draw more general conclusions about some phenomenon than is possible from individual studies, or may be undertaken as a prelude to further research activities.

In an attempt to perform an exhaustive search Brereton et al. [5] identified seven 

electronic sources of relevance to Software Engineers: 

• IEEExplore 
• ACM Digital library: 
• Google scholar (scholar.google.com)
• Citeseer library (citeseer.ist.psu.edu) 
• Inspec (www.iee.org/Publish/INSPEC/) 
• ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com) 
• EI Compendex (www.engineeringvillage2.org/Controller/Servlet/AthensService).

Structure
Title
Authors
Abstract
Background
Review Questions
Review Method
Included and Excluded Studies
Results
  Sensitivity Analysis
Discussion
  Principal findings
  Strengths and weeknesses
  Meaning of finfings
  
Conclusion
  Recommendations

Refeences