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Hand searching involves looking back through the tables of contents of key journals, conference proceedings, or lists of conference presentations for your systematic review topic. Once you have identified key journals, plan how many years back you will look — this will need to be done consistently across all journals that you hand search.

Journal TOCs (link opens in a new window) is a service which emails subscribers the tables of contents of any journals selected. This means you can keep track of future issues of the journal(s) without needing to remember to check them. You will need to sign up with an email address and password.