Literature Synthesis — Reading the Whole Field (arpsych-literature-synthesis)

When to trigger

• An invitation is in hand and the reading must start in earnest
• The user has "read a lot" but has no system for tracking what is covered
• Coverage gaps are likely (one paradigm, one lab, or one decade dominates the notes)
• An embedded meta-analysis is planned and the search must be documentable

Coverage is the price of admission, not the contribution

ARPsych readers trust a review to be comprehensive within its frame and current to the frontier. A reviewer caught missing a major line of work loses authority instantly. But coverage is the floor: the contribution is the framework you impose later (arpsych-organizing-framework). This skill builds an evidence base broad and well-recorded enough that (a) nothing important is missed and (b) you can later be selective in prose without being incomplete in coverage.

A systematic, documentable search

Even a narrative review benefits from a near-systematic search you can describe: