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Do the results provide a clear demographic overview of the literature (e.g., yearly volume, study designs, geographic focus)?

I've coded hundreds of articles for my meta-analysis.
The data includes publication years, methodologies, and country origins.
I need to know if synthesizing these into a demographic overview is a standard and valuable part of the results, or if it's considered superfluous.

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By Jyoti Answered 3 months ago

Absolutely, providing that demographic overview is a cornerstone of a high-quality synthesis. I've found that leading with this "map of the field" immediately orients your reader. I would recommend starting with a simple temporal chart showing publication volume over years to illustrate evolving interest. Then, use a table or a world map to summarize geographic and methodological distributions. This contextualizes your later thematic findings by showing where, when, and how knowledge has been produced, which reviewers consistently appreciate.

 

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