It's a good idea to start with review articles, which summarize past research on a particular subject and describe the current state of knowledge in the area. Review articles are usually written by experts in their field and contain useful references to other articles. They should give you an overview of your topic and point you towards important articles.

TIP: In Ovid Medline, after searching for your topic, click . Then, select .

Finally, after you've looked at books and review articles, it's time to move on to original research articles.

You need to know how to search effectively in order to find relevant articles on your topic, so this tutorial will provide lots of information on where and how to search. But first, here are some guidelines to help you evaluate and keep track of your sources.