In the present paper we briefly outline the principles of meta-analysis, which gradually substitutes narrative reviews in modern ecology and becomes a standard for generalization of the results of independent studies. We demonstrate that a substantial part of publications reporting effects of industrial pollution on terrestrial biota cannot be used in meta-analyses due to incomplete presentation of the results. To overcome this problem, we suggest a protocol for the description of the results that includes necessary and desirable characteristics of a polluter, an impact region, study objects and sampling design. We stress the need to always report mean value, its corresponding variance and sample size. Failure to comply with the simplest requirements to the presentation of research results in publications leads to the loss of valuable information.