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Hi Kerry!
I’m very sorry not to have gotten back to you sooner on both these questions — have been out of state caring for a sick relative.
1. In terms of finding your focus, you’re right that it’s a fundamental challenge. It seems like there’s always too much information on a topic or too little, never ‘just right’. We’ll discuss this tomorrow, but basically, if there is a glut of information on your topic in general, then try searching it for just acupuncture, then look at the background and references that the *acupuncture articles* cite, which will give you a sense of what other ‘people like us’ thought was important and help you get a sense of the scope. (I happen to know there’s good work on depression in pregnancy by Rosa Schnyer and others). But finding too many articles and winnowing them down to what’s relevant *is* what a systematic review is, so that brings us to
2. You’ll find that most colleges have great ‘how to’ resources for their students on all the basic research tasks like systematic reviews. Here’s one that’s quite thorough and has a good overview. https://lib.guides.umd.edu/SR/steps
We will definitely discuss this all tomorrow.