Table 1.

Cited versus described versus discussed: definitions and examples

	Definition	Example
Cited	A reference to the recent article was provided by the previous study	A recent meta-analysis on probiotics [15] cited a previous meta-analysis [16] by putting the reference (number 91) at the end of this sentence: ‘The objective of this study was to evaluate broadly the available evidence on probiotic interventions for the prevention and treatment of AAD, building on previous nonsystematic overviews and systematic reviews on selected applications [1,2,8,11,89-91].’
Described	Additional information about the results of the previous article was given by the recent study	A recent meta-analysis on dual blockade of the renin-angiotensin system [17] described the results from a previous meta-analysis [18] by saying, ‘One meta-analysis reported ‘encouraging’ evidence that dual therapy reduced proteinuria by an incremental 20-25% compared with monotherapy.’
Discussed	Results from the previous article were related to the results or conclusions from the recent study	A recent meta-analysis on oral anticoagulants [19] discussed the results from a previous systematic review [20] by saying, ‘Loke and Kwok published an adjusted indirect comparison of rivaroxaban and dabigatran based on studies on acute venous thromboembolism prophylaxis in orthopaedics, with low molecular weight heparin as the common comparator. Rivaroxaban was found to be superior to dabigatran, but there was a trend towards increased bleeding. Differences in therapeutic regimen and selection of patients could explain these discrepancies with our results.’