Research and Scholarly Activity Guide for Psychiatry Faculty, Residents, Fellows, and Students

• Is your topic about teaching or learning in psychiatry, rather than a mental health subject itself?  There is another guide for Searching on Education Literature above.
• Working on a meta-analysis?  Consider whether calculating an effect size (see Effect Size Calculator below) would allow you to compare different types of results. 

In addition to steps from your department or mentor: 

1. Clarify your topic and searchable question
2. Confirm your presentation date
3. Identify a mentor or peer reviewer. Meet with a librarian as needed.
4. Do a search for 1) systematic reviews or meta-analyses in Cochrane, Campbell, PsycINFO, PubMed, and 2) primary literature from the date cutoffs from the systematic review.  Save your search strategies!
5. Use a citation management software to organize your articles and citations from both peer-reviewed journal databases and other resources.
6. Critically appraise the articles you find that look most relevant to your question, if these are individual research articles (vs. a systematic review where someone else has already synthesized the information).
7. Look at additional resources relevant to your topic such as professional organization guidelines, white papers or epidemiological reports to provide background data for your topic. 
8. Create your content with appropriate citations.
9. Get peer review feedback.
10. Have a great presentation.