Capstone literature review: comparing across studies

Look at what the required sections actually ask for: a comparison of research questions, a comparison of sample populations, a comparison of the limitations of the study. All three are comparisons, and that single word decides the organisation of the whole paper. The default structure students reach for — one paragraph per article, each summarising a study — cannot produce any of them, because a summary runs through studies one at a time while a comparison runs across them, and the two organisations answer different questions entirely. Organise by dimension instead: one section discussing how the research questions relate to each other and to your PICOT, one discussing who was actually studied, one discussing what the studies could not establish. The same evidence appears, arranged so the required headings are answerable. Deciding this before you write saves rewriting the whole paper later, because the two structures share almost no sentences.

The sample population comparison is where the real analytical value sits, and it is usually the thinnest section. What matters is not the sample sizes but whether those populations resemble the one your intervention will meet — age, comorbidity, acuity, setting, country and health system. A trial conducted in a well-resourced academic centre may not transfer to a community clinic, and saying so is exactly the judgement a capstone is meant to demonstrate. Treat the limitations section the same way: not a list of what each author confessed, but what the body of evidence collectively cannot tell you, and therefore what remains uncertain for your project. That framing also makes the recommendations for further research write themselves, because a recommendation should name a gap you have already demonstrated rather than a topic you find interesting. That link is also the easiest thing for a marker to check, so it is worth making explicit rather than leaving implied.