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Table 3 Length of search expressions for Cochrane review and Google Scholar searches: number of characters including whitespace

From: Google Scholar as replacement for systematic literature searches: good relative recall and precision are not enough

Review

Cochrane SR*

Google Scholar

Ratio GS/C-SR

Arrol [21]

1779**

230

0.129

Sinclair [22]

126

170

1.349

McQueen [23]

693

144

0.208

Bar-On [24]

387

140

0.362

Bohlius [25]

1209

219

0.181

Boehm [26]

605

218

0.36

Guimarães [27]

862

93

0.108

Verbeek [28]

997

219

0.22

Yip [29]

357

194

0.534

Okebe [30]

135

181

1.341

Ipser [31]

1031

225

0.218

Sultan [32]

1053

97

0.092

Oduyebo [33]

957

150

0.157

Mestre [34]

267

229

0.858

  1. *: Number of characters of the documented MEDLINE searches in the Cochrane reviews.
  2. **: Number of characters of the search in the Cochrane Collaboration Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis Controlled Trials Registers (CCDANCTR) prior to the search proper.