In most Cochrane reviews, the primary source of information about each study is published reports of studies, usually in the form of journal articles. One of the most important and time-consuming parts of a systematic review is extracting data from such reports. The data collection form will usually be designed with data extraction in mind.
Electronic searches for text can provide a useful aid to locating information within a report, for example using search facilities in PDF viewers and word processing software. Text searching should not be considered a replacement for reading the report, however, since information may be presented using variable terminology.