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28 Best Academic Search Engines That make your research easier

If you’re a researcher or scholar, you know that conducting effective online research is a critical part of your job. And if you’re like most people, you’re always on the lookout for new and better ways to do it. 

This article aims to give you an edge over researchers that rely mainly on Google for their entire research process.

Table of Contents

#1. Google Scholar

Google Scholar is an academic search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.

#2. ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) 

ERIC indexes over a million articles, reports, conference papers, and other resources on all aspects of education from early childhood to higher education. So, search results are more relevant to Education on ERIC. 

ERIC is a free online database of education-related literature. 

#3. Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha can also be used to find academic articles. Just type in your keywords and Wolfram Alpha will generate a list of academic articles that match your query.

#4. iSEEK Education 

iSEEK is a search engine targeting students, teachers, administrators, and caregiver. It’s designed to be safe with editor-reviewed content.

iSEEK Education is free to use.

#5. BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)

CORE is an academic search engine that focuses on open access research papers. A link to the full text PDF or complete text web page is supplied for each search result. It’s academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers.

You might also like:

#7. Science.gov

#8. semantic scholar, #9. refseek.

This is one of the free search engines that feels like Yahoo with a massive directory. It could be good when you are just looking for research ideas from unexpected angles. It could lead you to some other database that you might not know such as the CIA The World Factbook, which is a great reference tool.

#10. ResearchGate 

A mixture of social networking site + forum + content databases where researchers can build their profile, share research papers, and interact with one another.

#11. DataONE Search (formerly CiteULike) 

#12. dataelixir , #13. lazyscholar – browser extension, #14. citeseerx – digital library from penstate, #15. the lens – patents search , #16. fatcat – wiki for bibliographic catalog , #17. lexis web – legal database, #18. infotopia – part of the vlrc family, #19. virtual learning resources center, #21. worldwidescience.

Over 70 countries’ databases are used on the website. When a user enters a query, it contacts databases from all across the world and shows results in both English and translated journals and academic resources.

#22. Google Books

A user can browse thousands of books on Google Books, from popular titles to old titles, to find pages that include their search terms. You can look through pages, read online reviews, and find out where to buy a hard copy once you find the book you are interested in.

#23. DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)

#24. baidu scholar, #25. pubmed central, #26. medline®.

MEDLINE® is a paid subscription database for life sciences and biomedicine that includes more than 28 million citations to journal articles. For finding reliable, carefully chosen health information, Medline Plus provides a powerful search tool and even a dictionary.

Defunct Academic Search Engines 

#27. microsoft academic  .

Microsoft Academic

#28. Scizzle

Final thoughts.

There are many academic search engines that can help researchers and scholars find the information they need. This list provides a variety of options, starting with more familiar engines and moving on to less well-known ones. 

10 thoughts on “28 Best Academic Search Engines That make your research easier”

Thank you so much Joannah..I have found this information useful to me as librarian in an academic library

You are welcome! We are happy to hear that!

Thank You Team, for providing a comprehensive list of academic search engines that can help make research easier for students and scholars. The variety of search engines included offers a range of options for finding scholarly articles, journals, and other academic resources. The article also provides a brief summary of each search engine’s features, which helps in determining which one is the best fit for a specific research topic. Overall, this article is a valuable resource for anyone looking for a quick and easy way to access a wealth of academic information.

We appreciate your support and thank you for your kind words. We will continue to provide valuable resources for students and researchers in the future. Please let us know if you have any further questions or suggestions.

No more questions Thank You

I cannot thank you enough!!! thanks alot 🙂

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Expontum – Helps researchers quickly find knowledge gaps and identify what research projects have been completed before. Expontum is free, open access, and available to all globally with no paid versions of the site. Automated processes scan research article information 24/7 so this website is constantly updating. By looking at over 35 million research publications (240 million by the end of 2023), the site has 146 million tagged research subjects and 122 million tagged research attributes. Learn more about methodology and sources on the Expontum About Page ( https://www.expontum.com/about.php )

Hey Ryan, I clicked and checked your site and thought it was very relevant to our reader. Thank you for sharing. And, we will be reviewing your site soon.

Sounds good! Thanks, Joannah!

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50 Useful Academic Words & Phrases for Research

Like all good writing, writing an academic paper takes a certain level of skill to express your ideas and arguments in a way that is natural and that meets a level of academic sophistication. The terms, expressions, and phrases you use in your research paper must be of an appropriate level to be submitted to academic journals.

Therefore, authors need to know which verbs , nouns , and phrases to apply to create a paper that is not only easy to understand, but which conveys an understanding of academic conventions. Using the correct terminology and usage shows journal editors and fellow researchers that you are a competent writer and thinker, while using non-academic language might make them question your writing ability, as well as your critical reasoning skills.

What are academic words and phrases?

One way to understand what constitutes good academic writing is to read a lot of published research to find patterns of usage in different contexts. However, it may take an author countless hours of reading and might not be the most helpful advice when faced with an upcoming deadline on a manuscript draft.

Briefly, “academic” language includes terms, phrases, expressions, transitions, and sometimes symbols and abbreviations that help the pieces of an academic text fit together. When writing an academic text–whether it is a book report, annotated bibliography, research paper, research poster, lab report, research proposal, thesis, or manuscript for publication–authors must follow academic writing conventions. You can often find handy academic writing tips and guidelines by consulting the style manual of the text you are writing (i.e., APA Style , MLA Style , or Chicago Style ).

However, sometimes it can be helpful to have a list of academic words and expressions like the ones in this article to use as a “cheat sheet” for substituting the better term in a given context.

How to Choose the Best Academic Terms

You can think of writing “academically” as writing in a way that conveys one’s meaning effectively but concisely. For instance, while the term “take a look at” is a perfectly fine way to express an action in everyday English, a term like “analyze” would certainly be more suitable in most academic contexts. It takes up fewer words on the page and is used much more often in published academic papers.

You can use one handy guideline when choosing the most academic term: When faced with a choice between two different terms, use the Latinate version of the term. Here is a brief list of common verbs versus their academic counterparts:

Although this can be a useful tip to help academic authors, it can be difficult to memorize dozens of Latinate verbs. Using an AI paraphrasing tool or proofreading tool can help you instantly find more appropriate academic terms, so consider using such revision tools while you draft to improve your writing.

Top 50 Words and Phrases for Different Sections in a Research Paper

The “Latinate verb rule” is just one tool in your arsenal of academic writing, and there are many more out there. But to make the process of finding academic language a bit easier for you, we have compiled a list of 50 vital academic words and phrases, divided into specific categories and use cases, each with an explanation and contextual example.

Best Words and Phrases to use in an Introduction section

1. historically.

An adverb used to indicate a time perspective, especially when describing the background of a given topic.

2. In recent years

A temporal marker emphasizing recent developments, often used at the very beginning of your Introduction section.

3. It is widely acknowledged that

A “form phrase” indicating a broad consensus among researchers and/or the general public. Often used in the literature review section to build upon a foundation of established scientific knowledge.

4. There has been growing interest in

Highlights increasing attention to a topic and tells the reader why your study might be important to this field of research.

5. Preliminary observations indicate

Shares early insights or findings while hedging on making any definitive conclusions. Modal verbs like may , might , and could are often used with this expression.

6. This study aims to

Describes the goal of the research and is a form phrase very often used in the research objective or even the hypothesis of a research paper .

7. Despite its significance

Highlights the importance of a matter that might be overlooked. It is also frequently used in the rationale of the study section to show how your study’s aim and scope build on previous studies.

8. While numerous studies have focused on

Indicates the existing body of work on a topic while pointing to the shortcomings of certain aspects of that research. Helps focus the reader on the question, “What is missing from our knowledge of this topic?” This is often used alongside the statement of the problem in research papers.

9. The purpose of this research is

A form phrase that directly states the aim of the study.

10. The question arises (about/whether)

Poses a query or research problem statement for the reader to acknowledge.

Best Words and Phrases for Clarifying Information

11. in other words.

Introduces a synopsis or the rephrasing of a statement for clarity. This is often used in the Discussion section statement to explain the implications of the study .

12. That is to say

Provides clarification, similar to “in other words.”

13. To put it simply

Simplifies a complex idea, often for a more general readership.

14. To clarify

Specifically indicates to the reader a direct elaboration of a previous point.

15. More specifically

Narrows down a general statement from a broader one. Often used in the Discussion section to clarify the meaning of a specific result.

16. To elaborate

Expands on a point made previously.

17. In detail

Indicates a deeper dive into information.

Points out specifics. Similar meaning to “specifically” or “especially.”

19. This means that

Explains implications and/or interprets the meaning of the Results section .

20. Moreover

Expands a prior point to a broader one that shows the greater context or wider argument.

Best Words and Phrases for Giving Examples

21. for instance.

Provides a specific case that fits into the point being made.

22. As an illustration

Demonstrates a point in full or in part.

23. To illustrate

Shows a clear picture of the point being made.

24. For example

Presents a particular instance. Same meaning as “for instance.”

25. Such as

Lists specifics that comprise a broader category or assertion being made.

26. Including

Offers examples as part of a larger list.

27. Notably

Adverb highlighting an important example. Similar meaning to “especially.”

28. Especially

Adverb that emphasizes a significant instance.

29. In particular

Draws attention to a specific point.

30. To name a few

Indicates examples than previously mentioned are about to be named.

Best Words and Phrases for Comparing and Contrasting

31. however.

Introduces a contrasting idea.

32. On the other hand

Highlights an alternative view or fact.

33. Conversely

Indicates an opposing or reversed idea to the one just mentioned.

34. Similarly

Shows likeness or parallels between two ideas, objects, or situations.

35. Likewise

Indicates agreement with a previous point.

36. In contrast

Draws a distinction between two points.

37. Nevertheless

Introduces a contrasting point, despite what has been said.

38. Whereas

Compares two distinct entities or ideas.

Indicates a contrast between two points.

Signals an unexpected contrast.

Best Words and Phrases to use in a Conclusion section

41. in conclusion.

Signifies the beginning of the closing argument.

42. To sum up

Offers a brief summary.

43. In summary

Signals a concise recap.

44. Ultimately

Reflects the final or main point.

45. Overall

Gives a general concluding statement.

Indicates a resulting conclusion.

Demonstrates a logical conclusion.

48. Therefore

Connects a cause and its effect.

49. It can be concluded that

Clearly states a conclusion derived from the data.

50. Taking everything into consideration

Reflects on all the discussed points before concluding.

Edit Your Research Terms and Phrases Before Submission

Using these phrases in the proper places in your research papers can enhance the clarity, flow, and persuasiveness of your writing, especially in the Introduction section and Discussion section, which together make up the majority of your paper’s text in most academic domains.

However, it's vital to ensure each phrase is contextually appropriate to avoid redundancy or misinterpretation. As mentioned at the top of this article, the best way to do this is to 1) use an AI text editor , free AI paraphrase tool or AI proofreading tool while you draft to enhance your writing, and 2) consult a professional proofreading service like Wordvice, which has human editors well versed in the terminology and conventions of the specific subject area of your academic documents.

For more detailed information on using AI tools to write a research paper and the best AI tools for research , check out the Wordvice AI Blog .

Free Research Title Generator

Looking for a creative and catchy title for a research proposal, thesis, dissertation, essay, or other project? Try our research title maker! It is free, easy to use, and 100% online.

Welcome to our free online research title generator. You can get your title in 3 simple steps:

• Type your search term and choose one or more subjects from the list,
• Click on the “Search topic” button and choose among the ideas that the title generator has proposed,
• Refresh the list by clicking the button one more time if you need more options.

Please try again with some different keywords or subjects.

• ️✅ Research Title Generator: 4 Benefits
• ️👣 Making a Research Title in 3 Steps
• ️🔗 References

Creating a topic for the research is one of the most significant events in a researcher’s life. Whether it is a thesis, dissertation, research proposal , or term paper, all of these assignments are time-consuming and require a lot of effort.

It is essential to choose a topic that you like and are genuinely interested in because you will spend a lot of time working on it. Our research title generator can help you with this crucial task. By delegating this work to our research title maker, you can find the best title for your research.

✅ Research Title Generator: 4 Benefits

There are many different research title makers online, so what makes our thesis title generator stand out?

👣 How to Make a Research Title: 3 Simple Steps

Research can be the most stressful period in a student’s life. However, creating a title is not as hard as it may seem. You can choose a topic for your paper in three simple steps.

Step 1: Brainstorm

The first step to take before getting into your research is to brainstorm . To choose a good topic, you can do the following:

• Think of all your interests related to your field of study. What is the reason you’ve chosen this field? Think of the topics of your area that you like reading about in your free time.
• Go through your past papers and choose the ones you enjoyed writing. You can use some lingering issues from your previous work as a starting point for your research.
• Go through current events in your field to get an idea of what is going on. Whether you are writing a literary analysis , gender studies research, or any other kind of paper, you can always find tons of articles related to your field online. You can go through them to see what issue is getting more attention.
• Try to find any gaps in current researches in your field. Use only credible sources while searching. Try to add something new to your field with your research. However, do not choose a completely new issue.
• Discuss what topic is suitable for you with your professors. Professor knows a lot of information about current and previous researches, so try to discuss it with them.
• Discuss lingering issues with your classmates. Try to ask what questions do they have about your field.
• Think of your desired future work . Your research might serve as a starting point for your future career, so think of your desired job.
• Write down 5-10 topics that you might be interested in. Ph.D. or Master’s research should be specific, so write down all the appropriate topics that you came up with.

Step 2: Narrow It Down

As you are done brainstorming, you have a list of possible research topics. Now, it is time to narrow your list down.

• Eliminate well-researched topics. Go through your list again and eliminate the topics that have already been well-researched before. Remember that you need to add something new to your field of study, so choose a topic that can contribute to it. However, try not to select a topic not researched at all, as it might be difficult.
• Choose a supervisor. Once you get a general idea of what your research will be about, choose a research supervisor. Think of a professor who is an expert in your desired area of research. Talk to them and tell them the reason why you want to work with them and why you chose this area of study.
• Discuss some of the topics with your supervisor. As you eliminated some irrelevant topics and shortened your list to 1-3 topics, you can discuss them with your supervisor. Since your supervisor has a better insight into your field of study, they can recommend a topic that can be most suitable for you. Make sure to elaborate on each topic and the reason you chose it.

Step 3: Formulate a Research Question

The next step is to create a research question. This is probably the most important part of the process. Later you’ll turn your research question into a thesis statement .

• The first step is to study your research study area thoroughly. Learn as many materials as you can to figure out the type of questions you can ask for your research. Make use of any articles, journals, libraries, etc. Write notes as you learn, and highlight the essential parts.

How did the economic situation in the 19th century affect literature?

• Find out the question for your research. Think of a question that you can answer and research best. To do it, think of the most convenient research process and available materials that you have access to. Do you need to do lab testing, quantitative analysis, or any kind of experiment? What skills do you have that can be useful?
• Choose a research question with your supervisor. Discuss the question that you came up with your supervisor. Get their feedback as they might have their own opinion on that topic and give you creative advice.

❓ Research Title Maker FAQ

❓ how to make a research title.

To make a research title:

• Brainstorm your field of study first.
• Think of the topics that you are interested in.
• Research current events in your study area and discuss your possible topics with your professors and classmates.
• Avoid random topics that are not well-researched.

❓ What is a working title for a research paper?

To make a good research paper title, analyze your area of study and all the related current events. Discuss your possible topics with your classmates and professors to get their opinion on them. You can also use our research title maker for free.

❓ What is the title page of a research paper?

The title page of the research paper is the first paper of your work. It includes your name, research type, and other essential information about your research.

❓ How to title a research proposal?

The research proposal title should be clear enough to showcase your research. Think of a statement that best describes your work and try to create a title that reflects it.

Updated: Aug 23rd, 2024

🔗 References

• Research Topics | Frontiers
• Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper
• Strategies for Selecting a Research Topic – ResearchGate
• The First Steps: Choosing a Topic and a Thesis Supervisor
• How to Pick a Masters Thesis Topic | by Peter Campbell

Top 10 Best Academic Search Engines for Scholarly Articles in 2024

Jc Chaithanya

14 min read

Best Search Engines to Search for Scientific Papers at a Glance 

Top 10 best search engines to search for scientific papers, google scholar key features , google scholar reviews , base key features , base reviews , scispace key features, scispace reviews , core key features , core reviews , scopus key features , scopus reviews, pubmed key features , pubmed reviews , jstor key features , jstor reviews , science.gov key features , science.gov reviews , semantic scholar key features , semantic scholar reviews , baidu scholar key features , baidu scholar reviews , our selection criteria to pick search engines for search for scientific papers, how to choose the best search engine to search for scientific papers, elephas: the research assistant that halves your research time, conclusion , 1. where can i search for scientific papers, 2. how do you search for scientific papers effectively, 3. how to find research papers on google.

Research is the cornerstone of scientific discovery. However, sifting through the vast amount of scholarly literature can feel overwhelming. Fear not, intrepid researchers! Today, we will equip you with the top 10 search engines designed specifically to streamline your search for scientific papers.

We'll delve into the strengths of each platform, helping you identify the perfect tool for your specific research needs. Whether you're seeking a broad overview or a deep dive into a niche topic, our analysis will ensure you learn about the most relevant and reliable search engines to propel your research forward.

To further maximize your research efficiency, we'll also introduce you to Elephas, a powerful AI writing assistant that can revolutionize your research paper writing process. However, we'll save that discussion for later in our article. For now, let's delve into the best search engines to search for scientific papers.

Google Scholar: General search for scholarly literature across various disciplines.

BASE: Free search engine for scholarly articles with summaries and full-text links.

SciSpace: Powerful search engine with AI-powered recommendations for related research.

CORE: User-friendly search engine for open-access scholarly publications.

Scopus: Search engine for high-quality, peer-reviewed scientific publications.

PubMed: Free search engine for biomedical and life sciences literature.

JSTOR: Comprehensive digital library for scholarly articles, ebooks, and primary sources across disciplines.

Science.gov: Free search engine for scientific research from US government agencies.

Semantic Scholar: Uses AI to find relevant research papers and uncover hidden connections.

Baidu Scholar: Search engine for academic literature in Chinese 

1. Google Scholar 

Google Scholar simplifies searching for scholarly literature. It crawls millions of academic publications across various disciplines, including articles, theses, books, and conference papers. Researchers can set up alerts to stay updated on new publications in their field. Google Scholar is like Google Search but specifically designed for academic research.

Massive Database: Search roughly 200 million scholarly articles.

Find Freely Available Papers: Locate research papers and often access full PDFs.

Stay Updated: Set alerts for new publications in your field.

Explore Research: Discover related articles, references, and citations.

Easy Citation Management: Export citations in various formats.

Formatting: Easily export your search results into common citation formats like APA and MLA.

We could not find any public reviews on Google Scholar, so we advise users to stay cautious when using the search engine.

2. Base 

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) is a free search engine specializing in scholarly articles. With over 136 million publications (including duplicates), BASE allows you to search for research papers across various disciplines. It provides summaries and links to full text whenever available. While BASE doesn't offer features like finding related articles, cited references, or who cited the paper, it excels in its core function: searching for scientific publications effortlessly.

Free Search Engine: Access millions of scholarly publications without any cost.

Focus on Academic Content: Search a vast collection of research papers across various fields.

Article Summaries: Quickly grasp the research topic with summaries (abstracts) provided for each article.

Full Text Links: When available, access the full scientific paper directly through BASE.

Simple Interface: Navigate BASE's user-friendly interface to find what you need efficiently.

We could not find any public reviews on Base search engine, so we advise users to stay cautious when using the search engine.

3. Scispace

SciSpace is a powerful search engine specifically designed for academic research. With over 300 million scholarly articles across various fields, SciSpace utilizes advanced algorithms to deliver relevant search results. Its user-friendly interface makes navigating millions of research papers simple for both beginners and experienced researchers.

Massive Academic Database: Search over 300 million scholarly articles.

Advanced Search & Filters: Find relevant papers by author, citation count, and more.

AI-powered Recommendations: Get suggestions for related research based on your search.

Integrated Research Tools: Read papers, conduct literature reviews, and generate citations.

User-friendly Interface: Easy to navigate for both novice and experienced researchers.

CORE is a user-friendly search engine designed specifically for scholarly research papers. Unlike traditional search engines, CORE focuses on freely accessible, open-access publications. This means you can easily find millions of scientific articles without any paywalls or restrictions. Every search result on CORE conveniently links directly to the full-text PDF or webpage of the research paper, allowing you to dive deeper into your chosen topic

Vast Collection: Search through over 136 million academic publications.

Full Text Access: Every search result includes a link to the complete article, either in PDF or on the publisher's webpage.

Enhanced Discovery: Easily explore related articles to broaden your research scope.

Simple Interface: CORE's user-friendly design lets you find what you need quickly and efficiently.

Focus on Open Access: CORE prioritizes freely available research, ensuring you can access the latest scientific findings without restrictions.

We could not find any public reviews on Core Search engine, so we advise users to stay cautious when using the search engine.

Scopus is a search engine for scientific research. It helps researchers find scholarly articles, conference papers, and patents. Unlike regular search engines, Scopus focuses on high-quality, peer-reviewed publications. This ensures you find reliable information to support your research. Scopus also offers advanced search options to help you narrow down your search and find relevant papers quickly.

Extensive Coverage: Search millions of peer-reviewed publications across various disciplines.

Accurate Search: Find relevant research with advanced search options and filters.

Verified Content: Explore high-quality, trusted publications with a focus on peer review.

Author Tracking: Monitor the impact of your research by tracking citations and authorship.

Discover Connections: Explore how different research papers are linked and build upon each other.

PubMed , a free search engine developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), specializes in biomedical and life sciences literature. Offering a vast collection of scholarly articles, journals, clinical trials, and more, PubMed is a trusted resource for medical professionals, researchers, students, and anyone seeking scientific information. 

Extensive Collection: Search millions of scientific citations in medicine, health sciences, and related fields.

Accurate Results: PubMed's curated database ensures the quality and trustworthiness of your search results.

Advanced Search Options: Refine your search using keywords, MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms, publication dates, and more.

User-Friendly Interface: The search engine features a user-friendly interface for efficient exploration of scientific data.

We could not find any public reviews on Pubmed, so we advise users to stay cautious when using the search engine.

JSTOR is a comprehensive digital library for researchers across disciplines. Search for academic journals, books, and primary sources in an easy-to-use interface. Explore millions of images and historical documents alongside scholarly articles. JSTOR offers an interdisciplinary approach, allowing you to research immigration through text and imagery or delve into art history with collections from leading museums.

Search All Content: Find scholarly articles, ebooks, images, and primary sources.

Primary Sources: Explore millions of historical documents, artwork, maps, and photographs.

Image Search: Discover over 3 million images to enhance your research.

Independent Voices: Access alternative publications like underground newspapers and magazines.

Artstor Integration: Search millions of art and cultural artifacts from leading institutions.

We could not find any public reviews on the JSTOR search engine, so we advise users to stay cautious when using the search engine.

8. Science.gov 

Science.gov is a free search engine designed specifically for scientific research. It simplifies your search by providing access to over 200 million scientific articles and reports from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies in one central location. This eliminates the need to search through individual agency websites, saving you valuable time and effort.

Search across 15+ U.S. government science agencies: Find scientific information from a vast collection of resources.

200 million+ scientific articles and reports: Access a comprehensive database of scientific research.

Links to full text (when available): Access the complete scientific paper if offered by the database.

Export Options: Export your search results in various citation formats for convenient reference management (availability may vary depending on the database).

We could not find any public reviews on science.gov, so we advise users to stay cautious when using the search engine.

9. Semantic Scholar 

Semantic Scholar is a powerful search engine that uses artificial intelligence to help you find relevant research papers. Its advanced algorithms go beyond keywords to uncover hidden connections and relationships between research topics, delivering more impactful search results.

Natural Language Search: Find research papers using plain language, just like you would search the web.

Comprehensive Coverage: Explore over 40 million scholarly articles across various disciplines.

Detailed Information: Access abstracts, related articles, references, citations, and links to full text (when available).

Export Options: Easily export citations in popular formats like APA, MLA, Chicago, and BibTeX.

We could not find any public reviews on Semantic Scholar, so we advise users to stay cautious when using the search engine.

10. Baidu Scholar 

Baidu Scholar is a powerful search engine designed specifically for academic literature. Despite its Chinese interface, Baidu Scholar indexes a vast collection of scientific papers in English alongside Chinese publications. With over 100 million articles, it offers a valuable resource for researchers worldwide. While some features are limited, like the lack of "cited by" functionality and only showing snippets of abstracts.

Multilingual Search: Find research papers in both English and Chinese.

Large Database: Explore over 100 million indexed articles.

Abstract and Reference Exploration: Gain insights from snippets of abstracts and identify related and cited articles.

Free to Use: Access and search for scientific papers without any cost.

Our selection process focuses on several key criteria to ensure you get the most relevant and reliable results for your scientific inquiry.

1. Depth and Breadth of Content: A vast library of scientific papers is crucial. We looked for search engines that indexed millions of scholarly articles, journals, and publications across various disciplines.

2. Accuracy and Credibility: Trustworthy information is paramount in science. We prioritized search engines that focused on peer-reviewed publications and curated databases to ensure the quality of your results.

3. User-Friendly Interface: A user-friendly interface makes the search process efficient. We considered search engines with clear navigation, advanced search options, and filtering capabilities to help you refine your research.

4. Open Access: Unrestricted access to scientific knowledge is vital. We included search engines that offered a significant amount of freely available, open-access content, alongside those with subscription-based resources for comprehensive searching.

5. Additional Features: Powerful search engines go beyond basic searches. We considered functionalities like AI-powered recommendations for related research, citation management tools, and the ability to export search results in various formats.

By following these selection criteria, we create the top 10 search engines to search for scientific papers. So, explore all the search engines and find the one that is best to Search for Scientific Papers

There are tons of search engines to search for scientific papers out there, and picking the best one for your scientific research can feel like a real challenge. Don't worry, we will help you find the perfect Search Engine to Search for Scientific Papers

Step 1: Identify Your Needs

Breadth vs. Depth: Are you looking for a general overview of a topic or a deep dive into specific research?

Open Access: Do you need freely available articles, or are you affiliated with an institution with access to a wider range of resources?

Focus: Is your research in a specific field like medicine, engineering, or social sciences?

Step 2: Choosing Your Weapon

Now that you know your needs, let's explore some of the top search engines to search for  scientific papers:

General Search Engines:

Google Scholar: The go-to option for a broad search across many disciplines. It crawls millions of scholarly articles and often provides links to full PDFs.

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine): A search engine with over 136 million publications, offering summaries and links to full text whenever available.

Specialized Search Engines:

SciSpace: Employs AI to deliver relevant results and suggest related research based on your search.

CORE: Focuses on open-access publications, ensuring you can find millions of scientific articles without paywalls.

Scopus: Curates high-quality, peer-reviewed publications for a focus on reliable information.

PubMed: Developed for the medical and life sciences field, PubMed offers a vast collection of articles, journals, and clinical trials.

Additional Powerhouses:

JSTOR: A comprehensive digital library with scholarly articles, ebooks, and primary sources across disciplines, including historical documents and images.

Science.gov: A one-stop shop for scientific research from US government agencies, providing access to over 200 million articles and reports.

Semantic Scholar: Uses artificial intelligence to uncover hidden connections between research topics for more impactful results.

Baidu Scholar: While the interface is in Chinese, Baidu Scholar indexes a vast collection of scientific papers in both English and Chinese.

Remember: No single search engine is perfect. Experiment with a few based on your needs and combine them for a comprehensive search. Many of these engines allow advanced search options to further refine your results.

Now you've got the perfect search engine to find the best research papers, but what about after you've found them? Elephas is an AI writing assistant that can help you with every stage of your research paper writing, from summarizing complex sources to generating creative ideas and even helping you stay on track with your grammar and citations.

Here's how Elephas can make you a research paper writing master:

Summarizes complex research: Struggling to understand a dense academic paper? Elephas can break it down for you, highlighting the key points and saving you valuable time.

Boosts your writing: Whether you need help with brainstorming ideas, structuring your paper, or simply polishing your writing style, Elephas has a variety of features to get you there.

Check your grammar: No more typos or embarrassing mistakes! Elephas ensures your writing is clear, concise, and error-free.

Multiple writing styles: Need your paper to be formal or informal? Funny or serious? Elephas can adapt its writing style to fit your needs.

Works offline: Worried about data privacy? Elephas has an offline mode that lets you work securely without an internet connection.

These are just a few of the ways Elephas can help you write research papers faster and more efficiently. Elephas offers many more features that can significantly reduce your daily workload.

So why not give it a try and see how much time you can save?

In summary, there are many great search engines to search for scientific papers out there, each with its own strengths. The best one for you depends on what you're researching.

Need a quick overview? Try Google Scholar or BASE.

Want in-depth studies? Look at Scopus or PubMed (for medical stuff).

Need free articles? Try CORE or JSTOR (for more than just science).

If you're not sure where to start, try a few and see which one you like best. You can even use them together to find the most information!

Remember, the ideal search engine hinges on your specific requirements.

Are you seeking a broad overview of a particular field, or a deep dive into a niche topic?

Does open-access content suffice, or do you have institutional access to a wider range of resources?

What is your research area's primary discipline (medicine, engineering, social sciences)?

By considering these questions, you can ensure you select the most effective search engine to propel your research forward.

While powerful search engines are essential, there are additional tools that can significantly enhance your research efficiency. Consider Elephas, an advanced AI writing assistant designed to streamline every stage of the research paper writing process. From summarizing complex sources to generating creative ideas and maintaining flawless grammar and citations, Elephas helps you to become a research paper writing master.

You can search for scientific papers in many online search engines like Google Scholar, BASE, CORE, Scopus, PubMed, JSTOR, Science.gov, Semantic Scholar, and Baidu Scholar. Each engine has its strengths, so it depends on your specific needs. 

First, identify your needs. Are you looking for a general overview or a deep dive? Do you need free articles or have access to paid resources? Then choose a search engine that fits your needs. Finally, use the advanced search options in the research search engines to refine your results.

Google Scholar is a search engine specifically designed for scholarly articles. You can search for papers by topic, author, title, and more. It also allows you to find freely available PDFs of many papers.

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Research Title Generator

Create outstanding research titles for your essays via our tool..

How to Generate Declarative Research Titles with EssayGPT?

Give your audience a proper sneak into your research idea with a title that fits its purpose. With EssayGPT, you can do it within minutes and with guaranteed accuracy. Here’s how.

• 1. Input the topic of your essay or the keywords that are relevant to your subject matter.
• 2. Choose the target audience of the research, your preferred tone of voice, and the language of the research.
• 3. Hit the button to generate a title. You can regenerate a title as many times as you want to or tweak the keywords for greater accuracy.

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Want to Write a Research Essay? EssayGPT 's Research Title Maker is Here to Help

Having an impressive research idea is good, but crafting a title that catches the attention of your audience at first glance is even better. In some other cases, you may have different possible research options, but need a title to help streamline your thoughts.

Regardless of which category you find yourself in, the research title maker is guaranteed to help you create the best titles in an instant. With EssayGPT , there are different tone of voice options that will guarantee you a befitting title for academic and non-academic essays alike.

Create Titles for Research Paper at Once for Better Brainstorming

The best part of using EssayGPT is that you can generate multiple titles for your essays and research papers all at once. EssayGPT offers up to five titles in one click. You can change keywords, tone preferences, or audience type to regenerate more titles until the AI program delivers one that’s perfect for your use.

Reasons to Choose Our Research Title Generator

Curating a title for your research work is as important as the research work itself. Whether it’s for an academic endeavor or a casual write-up, using a title generator can help you cut back on stress and time, while also ensuring accuracy. Here are some more benefits of choosing EssayGPT 's research title generator.

Free Credit Available

You can generate different titles up to a total of 1,000 words for free every week with an option to upgrade when you exhaust your free credits.

Suitable for Academics

Our research title generator can help academic researchers create compelling titles for their thesis or essays.

User-friendly Interface

Our tool is incredibly user-friendly and you don’t need any expert knowledge to operate it or create your titles.

Take Inspiration from EssayGPT's Research Title Maker

Don't Limit Yourself at Research Title Generator, Explore Other Tools Now

Thesis statement generator, essay checker, essay rewriter, essay hook generator, essay extender, essay introduction generator, essay outline generator, free essay conclusion generator, essay shortener, dive into a world of inspiration.

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1. How does EssayGPT's research title generator tool create titles?

EssayGPT is an artificial intelligence essay writing tool trained with a data set comprising different title pairs. This training enables the tool to utilize keywords, tone customization, and audience information in curating perfectly matching titles.

2. How Do I save the titles generated by your research title maker?

That’s simple. You can either copy the title from the output box and paste it on your research document or your digital notes app. You may also head to the dashboard to revisit previously created research titles.

3. How many titles can I generate with EssayGPT's title generator?

With EssayGPT, you can generate up to five titles using a specific query. If you’re not satisfied with the results, you may change your inputs and keep trying till you get the perfect title.

4. Can I customize the titles created by your research title generator tool?

Absolutely. Once a research title is generated, you can click on the edit button to rewrite words or the entire title. Our title generator tool aims to provide title inspirations, so feel free to customize the suggestions to accurately reflect your intentions.

Generate Compelling Research Titles for Your Research Papers

Let your creativity shine through with impactful titles! Use our free research title generator to empower your research.

19 Academic Writing Tools (that are completely free!)

A selection of tools for academic writing – from collaborating, time-tracking and project management to finding the perfect phrase or translation. We are continuously updating this list (latest update: April 2023).

I often get asked about my favourite academic writing tools. That’s why I compiled this scientific tools list for you with 19 great tools to support your academic writing. You can use all these scientific research tools for free and some of them have paid versions with additional features.

Just one word of caution: Exploring new academic writing tools can be a time-suck and distract you from getting your actual writing done. If you are one of those people who spend hours signing up for new software for academic writing and getting it set up, only to abandon the tool a few days or weeks later – then be careful reading this scientific tools list, and don’t get overenthusiastic. 😉

By the way, I don’t have any affiliation with any of the academic writing tools listed below, and none of these are affiliated links.

Here, we go, 19 tools for academic writing and scientific research I recommend in no particular order:

ACADEMIC Writing tools

1. writefull.

This proof-reading tool for scientific texts is powered by AI and big data. You can integrate the Writefull app into Word or Overleaf for free. A reader of the blog brought my attention to this tool (thank you so much!) and I’ve only recently started using it, so I can’t give you a full-blown review just yet but so far the results are promising. Writefull is owned by Digital Science, a company that has released several Open Science apps, such as figshare, Overleaf and Altmetric. 

2. Phrasebank

Created by Dr John Morley from “The University Language Center” of Manchester University, the Phrasebank is a database of common phrases used in papers, dissertations and grant proposals – a real goldmine!

The phrases are organised both by the common sections in a paper such as the Introduction, Methods, Results or Discussion section. For example, in the tab for the Introduction section, one can find entries for “establishing the importance of the topic for the world or society” or “identifying a knowledge gap in the field of study”. If you click on the latter, you can find among others the following suggested phrases: “It is still unclear whether…”, “However, the behaviour of X has not yet been investigated” and “Causal factors leading to X remain speculative”.

You can also look for phrases by choosing a general language function. Some of the choices are “being cautious”, “describing trends”, “signalling transition”.   

The Phrasebank is very useful to get inspiration for new wording but I do not endorse all entries. Sometimes you find language that is a bit clunky or overly complicated so do use your own judgement when you browse this academic writing tool. PS: You can also download the Academic Phrasebank as PDF or Kindle file.

3. Thesaurus.com

If you’re looking for synonyms, thesaurus.com is the best online thesaurus I’ve found so far. It divides the synonyms based on different meanings of the word and indicates the relevance of the synonym by using three shades of orange.

Just one word of caution: Don’t fall into the trap of using too many synonyms in your academic writing. Being precise is so much more important than varying the words you are using in your writing. In particular for field-specific terminology, I advise against using synonyms .

This is a hot tip for researchers who need to transcribe interviews (hello, social scientists!), who like to record research ideas or those who like to write by dictating text into their phone. Otter is an AI-based transcription tool that works for English language recordings. The quality of the transcriptions is comparable to other transcription services using AI, meaning they are often not accurate and can give nonsensical, even comical results — especially when the recorded voice has a strong or unusual accent. Still, the automated and quick transcriptions (real time transcriptions are available too!) can be a good starting point and are a huge time saver. What’s cool about Otter compared to its competitors is that they give you 300 minutes of transcriptions per month for free!

There are many online dictionaries but Linguee is my favourite for academic writing. It suggests a translation on the basis of previous translations published on the internet.  Therefore, this dictionary is especially great if you’re looking to not only translate a word but a certain turn of phrase or idiom. Linguee translates to and from English in over 20 languages. An essential academic writing tool for all non-native English speakers!

ACADEMIC WRITING TOOLS FOR Collaboration AND CO-WRITING

6. authorea.

The magazine “ TechCrunch ” describes Authorea as “a Google Docs for scientists”. On the academic writing platform, you can write, edit, and insert citations, figures and data. And it’s great for collaborative writing: Co-authors can access the same text at the same time, track the changes they made, insert comments and even live-chat during writing sessions. Documents can be imported from LaTeX and Word and exported as LaTeX, Word and PDF documents. You can also submit your article as a bioRxiv preprint straight from the Authorea platform. This software for academic writing is free for up to ten documents with limited sharing options.

7. Overleaf

Overleaf is to LaTeX users, what Authorea (see tool #6) is to Word users: an online editor that allows you to access and collaborate on your writing projects from anywhere. You can, for example, invite others to comment on your work. Overleaf offers some other neat collaborative writing features, such as a track-changes function, but – unfortunately – only on the paid plan. LaTeX may seem a bit intimidating at first but you actually get the hang of it quite fast (and feel like a coder 😎). Also, in my experience, you save a lot of time formatting your text (and feel smug about it when you talk to Word users 😁).

Slack is a chat tool that you can use in your lab or with your collaborators. Used in the right way, it allows you to save time by cutting down on emails and create a group atmosphere even if the members are not working in the same location. You can easily add files to the chats and create different channels for subgroups or certain topics. There also exist virtual communities on Slack you can join, such as the New PI Slack community for Assistant professors around the world. 

Loom is a great scientific research tool when you want to share a quick video with a colleague, student or collaborator. This could be a recorded presentation or lecture, your comments on the paper of a co-author, or a tutorial on using a piece of software. You can record your screen, camera and microphone. The neat thing is that after you’re done recording, Loom auto-generates a link you can share.

Academic writing tools for Productivity and project management

Toggl is a time-tracking app that you can install on your phone and computer. There’s only one way of knowing how long certain writing tasks typically take you, and that is by tracking the time they took you to complete . Time-tracking has another great advantage: You can identify time-sucks in your day. And these may be less obvious than you think.

I like to use Toggl for time-tracking because it’s quick to use and integrates with various other scientific research tools I am using. You just need to click the big red power button to start or stop a recording and assign tracked times to different projects. This scientific research tool has paid plans but for most people the free basic plan will be sufficient.

Are you easily tempted to check your phone when you really should be writing? This app called Forest may be just right for you then. Once installed on your phone, you can start planting a virtual tree whenever you want to focus. It grows from a little plant to a full-grown tree. When you pick up your phone and leave the app, the tree dies. This way, you can build your forest representing the time you have spent on focused work (or quality time with your family and friends…). I’m not using Forest myself, but I’ve heard that it works really as an academic writing tool well for some people. Give it a go!  

12. Focusmate

As Forest (see tool #11), Focusmate is an app to help you stay focused. Instead of  gamification, the concept of Focusmate is based on social accountability. Here is how it works: You schedule a 50-minute virtual co-writing session with another Focusmate member, turn on your webcam when your session starts, greet your temporary co-worker and then get to work silently.

Even though being filmed while working is a little strange in the beginning, co-writing sessions work really well for a lot of researchers. This is why we offer co-writing sessions as part of our academic writing program, the Researchers’ Writing Academy, as well.

13. Cold Turkey

If Forest (tool #11) or Focusmate (#12) don’t get you to focus on your writing, you may need to go Cold Turkey . This software for academic writing blocks any other application and turns your computer into a typewriter. You can choose whether you want Cold Turkey to prevent you from digital distractions for a certain amount of time or until you’ve hit a certain word count. With the paid version, you can even access integrated productivity soundtracks and text formatting.

Not an app exactly, but free as well: Click the orange button below to have me walk you through my step-by-step system to write clear & concise papers for your target journals in a timely manner . This free academic writing training is perfect for you if you’re reading this blog post because you are procrastinating on writing your paper.

Trello is an excellent project management tool for your academic writing, which you can use for managing each of your writing projects, for creating a publication pipeline and as a daily and weekly to-do list. Trello is a great introduction into project management because it’s a lot easier to learn and use than most other project management software. For each project called a “Board”, you can create different “lists”, which are vertical collection of “cards”, which you can move between lists. You can add due dates, checklist lists, links, files and text to each card. To work collaboratively, you can leave comments on cards and assign them to members on your team. You can also use Trello as a brainstorming tool, using the cards just as you would use post-it notes.

Members of my online course, the Researchers’ Writing Academy , get access to Trello templates I created to easily manage their publication pipeline, the writing process for each of their scientific papers and all of their other daily, weekly and monthly tasks and projects.

15. Todoist

Todoist is an alternative to Trello (see tool #16) or can be used in addition. It’s an online to-do list organiser and project management tool that comes as an app and browser version. You can organise your tasks in projects and schedule them for a certain day. This academic writing tool shows you today’s tasks as well as those for the next seven days. It also tracks your productivity, i.e. how many tasks you have completed.

academic writing Tools for finding and reading the literature

Feedly is a neat RSS feed manager that helps you stay up to date with the scientific literature. Instead of getting email alerts from journals (because who wants to get more emails…) you can view and organise the literature you are interested in by following journals’ RSS feeds. You can not only use this for scientific literature but also subscribe to blogs, for example the one you’re reading right now, by simply putting the URL in the Feedly search: https://annaclemens.com/blog .

Are you a mindmapper? Then you need Xmind , a free mindmapping and brain-storming tool. It’s intuitive, looks good and does exactly what you want a mindmapping tool to do. The free version allows for embedding of hyperlinks, images, attachments, so you can really use it however you like! That’s all I can really say about it as I’m not using mindmapping myself. But I know scientists who swear by it!

18. Audemic

Audio formats have become so popular (I’m a big podcast lover myself!) so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that there now is an audio tool available for the scientific literature too: Audemic . This tool — completely free to use for individual researchers — creates summaries for you (that go beyond the abstract), lets you skip sections, highlight text and take notes while listening.

There are a few reference managers for your academic writing to choose from, some of which cost money. Zotero is free, open-source and doesn’t lack in functionality. You can easily save references from your browser, organise them in folders and with tags and create bibliographies with the right style. You can also create a citation library with your co-authors or share your library with others.

That’s it: 19 academic writing apps and scientific research tools to support your writing for free! However, the best academic writing software won’t make you more productive if you don’t rely on a streamlined writing process and if you aren’t using your writing sessions effectively. If you want to get your hands on a template to write scientific papers in a systematic fashion, sign up for this 1-hour writing training now. It’s free too!

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© Copyright 2018-2024 by Anna Clemens. All Rights Reserved. 

Photography by Alice Dix

Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic research databases

2. Web of Science

5. ieee xplore, 6. sciencedirect, 7. directory of open access journals (doaj), get the most out of your academic research database, frequently asked questions about academic research databases, related articles.

Whether you are writing a thesis , dissertation, or research paper it is a key task to survey prior literature and research findings. More likely than not, you will be looking for trusted resources, most likely peer-reviewed research articles.

Academic research databases make it easy to locate the literature you are looking for. We have compiled the top list of trusted academic resources to help you get started with your research:

Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Besides searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator .

• Coverage: 90.6 million core records
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Multidisciplinary
• Access options: Limited free preview, full access by institutional subscription only
• Provider: Elsevier

Web of Science also known as Web of Knowledge is the second big bibliographic database. Usually, academic institutions provide either access to Web of Science or Scopus on their campus network for free.

• Coverage: approx. 100 million items
• References: 1.4 billion
• Access options: institutional subscription only
• Provider: Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters)

PubMed is the number one resource for anyone looking for literature in medicine or biological sciences. PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than 30 million papers and provides full text links to the publisher sites or links to the free PDF on PubMed Central (PMC) .

• Coverage: approx. 35 million items
• Discipline: Medicine and Biological Sciences
• Access options: free
• Provider: NIH

For education sciences, ERIC is the number one destination. ERIC stands for Education Resources Information Center, and is a database that specifically hosts education-related literature.

• Coverage: approx. 1.6 million items
• Discipline: Education
• Provider: U.S. Department of Education

IEEE Xplore is the leading academic database in the field of engineering and computer science. It's not only journal articles, but also conference papers, standards and books that can be search for.

• Coverage: approx. 6 million items
• Discipline: Engineering
• Provider: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

ScienceDirect is the gateway to the millions of academic articles published by Elsevier, 1.4 million of which are open access. Journals and books can be searched via a single interface.

• Coverage: approx. 19.5 million items

The DOAJ is an open-access academic database that can be accessed and searched for free.

• Coverage: over 8 million records
• Provider: DOAJ

JSTOR is another great resource to find research papers. Any article published before 1924 in the United States is available for free and JSTOR also offers scholarships for independent researchers.

• Coverage: more than 12 million items
• Provider: ITHAKA

Start using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with PubMed and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Beside searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator .

PubMed is the number one resource for anyone looking for literature in medicine or biological sciences. PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than 30 million papers and provides full text links to the publisher sites or links to the free PDF on PubMed Central (PMC)

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Provocative paper titles.

By Dr Leslie McIntosh, Founder and CEO of Ripeta , and Dr Hilde van Zeeland, Applied Linguist at Writefull.

At Ripeta, we develop tools to automatically scan manuscripts for key scientific quality indicators and provide feedback on ways to improve research reporting. We assess, design, and disseminate practices and measures to improve the reproducibility of, and trust in science with minimal burden on scientists.

In what can often feel like a sea of dry scientific writing, provocative titles in scientific research papers stand out. Occasionally, legitimate scientists conducting good research will attempt more humorous titles. Sometimes, they even land! 

To highlight the joy of a jaunty paper title, our friends at Writefull, providers of AI-based research proofreading services, have developed a fun app to generate scientific paper titles based on article abstracts. When pondering paper titles, I wondered whether a disconnect between a paper’s abstract and its title could indicate a potential need to inspect the article for possible trust issues, and what better way to investigate it than to use their app!

And so, without further ado, or indeed statistical significance, I present three articles: 

Article 1: A (very not) scintillating title 

Human created title.

An analysis of form and function of a research article between and within publishers and journals

Writefull’s Computer-Generated Title 

• Research Article Heading Organization and Forms for Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing: A Case Study from a Single Institution
• A Heading Form and Function Analysis for Machine Learning
• Research Article Heading Form and Function Analysis Using Rhetorical Functions

Picking an enticing article we just published at Ripeta about research article heading and subheadings, I wanted to see how close our paper name compared to those generated by a computer. Based on the alternative possibilities, the similarities of titles reassured me that we accurately framed our paper as dryly as possible, keeping in line with scientific naming conventions. Quite an interesting article when training machine learning algorithms to parse and categorize articles. However, definitely not click-bait.

Article 2: A title from an author trying to be clever (apologies Dr. Luke)

Where there’s smoke there’s money: Tobacco industry campaign contributions and U.S. Congressional voting

Writefull’s Computer-Generated Title Possibilities

• Voting Behaviors of Representatives from the Tobacco Industry Political Action Committees in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Analysis
• The Effectiveness of Campaign Contributions for Tobacco-Related Legislators in the United States: A Cross-Sectional, Multilevel Model
• Voting Behavior of Tobacco Industry Political Action Committees

A search in Dimensions shows over 160 articles alluding to the proverb ‘ Where there’s smoke ’ in the title. Not that uncommon. Maybe even overused? From personal experience, Dr. Doug Luke enjoys using more flavourful titles for his papers and talks to make statistics sound as interesting as it really is. The generated titles compare favourably to the original segment after the academic colon.

Article 3: A provocative title (from a retracted article)

The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy

• Vaccine Safety and Risk Assessment for mRNA Vaccine COVID-19
• Vaccination of COVID-19: A Review of the Safety of Vaccines
• Safety Evaluation of COVID-19 Vaccines: The mRNA Vaccination versus the Number Needed for Vaccination

The problem with this title is the authors put in a recommendation into the title, which plays on the boundaries of scientific cultural norms. In fact the term ‘rethink the policy’ appears in only a handful of article titles . More troublesome is that the recommendation in the title does not logically follow from the paper, as also reflected by the auto-generated titles given by Writefull. Before even considering the fraughtful methods of the paper, we know the title and substance of the paper don’t agree with each other.

Provocative paper titles remind us that, first, scientists are able to laugh at themselves a little, and second that the title itself could have a bearing on the readership and thus the exposure of the science within. Could there be a relationship between paper titles and trust? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Tweet us @ripetaReview .

Want to try your hand at the title generation app? Go to the Writefull Title Generator and let us know what you found @Writefullapp and @ripetaReview .

At Ripeta we will keep exploring and automating checks to make better science easier. To learn more, head to the Ripeta website or contact us at [email protected] .

Dr. Leslie McIntosh CEO and Founder, Ripeta

Leslie is the founder and CEO of Ripeta and a researcher passionate about mentoring the next generation of data scientists. She is active in the Research Data Alliance, grew the St. Louis Machine Learning and Data Science Meetup to over 1500 participants, and was a fellow with a San Francisco based VC firm. She recently concluded as the Director of Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMI) at Washington University in St. Louis where she led a dynamic team of 25 individuals facilitating biomedical informatics services. Dr. McIntosh has a focus of assessing and improving the full research cycle and making the research process reproducible.

The best AI tools for research papers and academic research (Literature review, grants, PDFs and more)

As our collective understanding and application of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, so too does the realm of academic research. Some people are scared by it while others are openly embracing the change. 

Make no mistake, AI is here to stay!

Instead of tirelessly scrolling through hundreds of PDFs, a powerful AI tool comes to your rescue, summarizing key information in your research papers. Instead of manually combing through citations and conducting literature reviews, an AI research assistant proficiently handles these tasks.

These aren’t futuristic dreams, but today’s reality. Welcome to the transformative world of AI-powered research tools!

This blog post will dive deeper into these tools, providing a detailed review of how AI is revolutionizing academic research. We’ll look at the tools that can make your literature review process less tedious, your search for relevant papers more precise, and your overall research process more efficient and fruitful.

I know that I wish these were around during my time in academia. It can be quite confronting when trying to work out what ones you should and shouldn’t use. A new one seems to be coming out every day!

Here is everything you need to know about AI for academic research and the ones I have personally trialed on my YouTube channel.

My Top AI Tools for Researchers and Academics – Tested and Reviewed!

There are many different tools now available on the market but there are only a handful that are specifically designed with researchers and academics as their primary user.

These are my recommendations that’ll cover almost everything that you’ll want to do:

Want to find out all of the tools that you could use?

Here they are, below:

AI literature search and mapping – best AI tools for a literature review – elicit and more

Harnessing AI tools for literature reviews and mapping brings a new level of efficiency and precision to academic research. No longer do you have to spend hours looking in obscure research databases to find what you need!

AI-powered tools like Semantic Scholar and elicit.org use sophisticated search engines to quickly identify relevant papers.

They can mine key information from countless PDFs, drastically reducing research time. You can even search with semantic questions, rather than having to deal with key words etc.

With AI as your research assistant, you can navigate the vast sea of scientific research with ease, uncovering citations and focusing on academic writing. It’s a revolutionary way to take on literature reviews.

• Elicit –  https://elicit.org
• Litmaps –  https://www.litmaps.com
• Research rabbit – https://www.researchrabbit.ai/
• Connected Papers –  https://www.connectedpapers.com/
• Supersymmetry.ai: https://www.supersymmetry.ai
• Semantic Scholar: https://www.semanticscholar.org
• Laser AI –  https://laser.ai/
• Inciteful –  https://inciteful.xyz/
• Scite –  https://scite.ai/
• System –  https://www.system.com

If you like AI tools you may want to check out this article:

• How to get ChatGPT to write an essay [The prompts you need]

AI-powered research tools and AI for academic research

AI research tools, like Concensus, offer immense benefits in scientific research. Here are the general AI-powered tools for academic research. 

These AI-powered tools can efficiently summarize PDFs, extract key information, and perform AI-powered searches, and much more. Some are even working towards adding your own data base of files to ask questions from. 

Tools like scite even analyze citations in depth, while AI models like ChatGPT elicit new perspectives.

The result? The research process, previously a grueling endeavor, becomes significantly streamlined, offering you time for deeper exploration and understanding. Say goodbye to traditional struggles, and hello to your new AI research assistant!

• Consensus –  https://consensus.app/
• Iris AI –  https://iris.ai/
• Research Buddy –  https://researchbuddy.app/
• Mirror Think – https://mirrorthink.ai

AI for reading peer-reviewed papers easily

Using AI tools like Explain paper and Humata can significantly enhance your engagement with peer-reviewed papers. I always used to skip over the details of the papers because I had reached saturation point with the information coming in. 

These AI-powered research tools provide succinct summaries, saving you from sifting through extensive PDFs – no more boring nights trying to figure out which papers are the most important ones for you to read!

They not only facilitate efficient literature reviews by presenting key information, but also find overlooked insights.

With AI, deciphering complex citations and accelerating research has never been easier.

• Aetherbrain – https://aetherbrain.ai
• Explain Paper – https://www.explainpaper.com
• Chat PDF – https://www.chatpdf.com
• Humata – https://www.humata.ai/
• Lateral AI –  https://www.lateral.io/
• Paper Brain –  https://www.paperbrain.study/
• Scholarcy – https://www.scholarcy.com/
• SciSpace Copilot –  https://typeset.io/
• Unriddle – https://www.unriddle.ai/
• Sharly.ai – https://www.sharly.ai/
• Open Read –  https://www.openread.academy

AI for scientific writing and research papers

In the ever-evolving realm of academic research, AI tools are increasingly taking center stage.

Enter Paper Wizard, Jenny.AI, and Wisio – these groundbreaking platforms are set to revolutionize the way we approach scientific writing.

Together, these AI tools are pioneering a new era of efficient, streamlined scientific writing.

• Jenny.AI – https://jenni.ai/ (20% off with code ANDY20)
• Yomu – https://www.yomu.ai
• Wisio – https://www.wisio.app

AI academic editing tools

In the realm of scientific writing and editing, artificial intelligence (AI) tools are making a world of difference, offering precision and efficiency like never before. Consider tools such as Paper Pal, Writefull, and Trinka.

Together, these tools usher in a new era of scientific writing, where AI is your dedicated partner in the quest for impeccable composition.

• PaperPal –  https://paperpal.com/
• Writefull –  https://www.writefull.com/
• Trinka –  https://www.trinka.ai/

AI tools for grant writing

In the challenging realm of science grant writing, two innovative AI tools are making waves: Granted AI and Grantable.

These platforms are game-changers, leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to streamline and enhance the grant application process.

Granted AI, an intelligent tool, uses AI algorithms to simplify the process of finding, applying, and managing grants. Meanwhile, Grantable offers a platform that automates and organizes grant application processes, making it easier than ever to secure funding.

Together, these tools are transforming the way we approach grant writing, using the power of AI to turn a complex, often arduous task into a more manageable, efficient, and successful endeavor.

• Granted AI – https://grantedai.com/
• Grantable – https://grantable.co/

Best free AI research tools

There are many different tools online that are emerging for researchers to be able to streamline their research processes. There’s no need for convience to come at a massive cost and break the bank.

The best free ones at time of writing are:

• Elicit – https://elicit.org
• Connected Papers – https://www.connectedpapers.com/
• Litmaps – https://www.litmaps.com ( 10% off Pro subscription using the code “STAPLETON” )
• Consensus – https://consensus.app/

Wrapping up

The integration of artificial intelligence in the world of academic research is nothing short of revolutionary.

With the array of AI tools we’ve explored today – from research and mapping, literature review, peer-reviewed papers reading, scientific writing, to academic editing and grant writing – the landscape of research is significantly transformed.

The advantages that AI-powered research tools bring to the table – efficiency, precision, time saving, and a more streamlined process – cannot be overstated.

These AI research tools aren’t just about convenience; they are transforming the way we conduct and comprehend research.

They liberate researchers from the clutches of tedium and overwhelm, allowing for more space for deep exploration, innovative thinking, and in-depth comprehension.

Whether you’re an experienced academic researcher or a student just starting out, these tools provide indispensable aid in your research journey.

And with a suite of free AI tools also available, there is no reason to not explore and embrace this AI revolution in academic research.

We are on the precipice of a new era of academic research, one where AI and human ingenuity work in tandem for richer, more profound scientific exploration. The future of research is here, and it is smart, efficient, and AI-powered.

Before we get too excited however, let us remember that AI tools are meant to be our assistants, not our masters. As we engage with these advanced technologies, let’s not lose sight of the human intellect, intuition, and imagination that form the heart of all meaningful research. Happy researching!

Thank you to Ivan Aguilar – Ph.D. Student at SFU (Simon Fraser University), for starting this list for me!

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

Thank you for visiting Academia Insider.

We are here to help you navigate Academia as painlessly as possible. We are supported by our readers and by visiting you are helping us earn a small amount through ads and affiliate revenue - Thank you!

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Choosing my name as an author when publishing a scientific paper, can I use my "unofficial" first name?

I have one official first name which appears on my ID card. I have another first name which friends call me by. Is it possible to use my unofficial first name and official family name to publish scientific papers? How can I prove to someone that I am one of the authors?

• publications
• personal-name

• 27 Deciding which name to use on your first publication is important. Once you make a decision, you need to keep it consistent. Changing the name later will create unnecessay problem for youself. Please see the question How to edit name on existing publications after a name change? . –  Nobody Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 8:56
• The points about consistency are really important. Especially when searching online databases; some of them are not very intelligent when matching author names, and anything other than an exact match will not make it into the results. I've had trouble recently where one journal submitted author's names in Surname, First name format which the catalogue couldn't deal with. –  Anthony Commented Jun 2, 2014 at 4:22
• 1 Also, consider getting an ORCID ID. Many journals already include this in your name/affiliation information. –  Stephan Kolassa Commented Jul 25, 2023 at 18:05

4 Answers 4

It depends on the field, and in particular on the venue in which you are publishing. It's possible that some journals and conferences might have policies about this, which would of course override anything you read here. But in general: nobody checks (or cares) whether the name you put on a published paper matches your official name. So if you use an informal variant of your name, e.g. if your name is "Stephen" but you publish as "Steve", nobody will bat an eyelid. If you use a nickname or publish under a pseudonym, it would be a little odd if the nickname is something that sounds very informal, but still, it probably won't cause problems.

What people do care about is building a record of your work, and putting a face to the name if they know your face. So you should (1) be consistent with the name you use to publish, and (2) make sure other people in the field know that it refers to you.

• 3 (1) and (2) in the last paragraph are very important. Thinking about name tags on conferences, it could be a hassle to get your "academic" name written there, if it is different from the official name stated e.g. on the credit card with which you pay the registration. That's why I'd recommend using your official name on publications. –  silvado Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 8:25
• 14 That is a useful thing to consider, but in my experience most conferences ask for your name directly in their registration form, which they then use for their nametag printing. They don't use the name from the credit card for any purpose other than processing the payment. In fact it's possible, and even not uncommon, to use someone else's credit card entirely to pay for your conference registration. –  David Z Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 8:28
• Thanks. But, How someone can prove that he has written those articles? –  MOON Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 9:35
• 6 You can't prove that you wrote something just by having the same name as the person who did write it, anyway! –  Tara B Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 10:25
• 2 @yashar about proving you wrote the papers, probably you won't write them alone, you are a person collaborating with some other people in a specific institution with an assigned and unique email address. The surname should do the rest. The email is more important for automatic tools to disambiguate as well. As a matter of fact, there are many (well, I found so far 6) guys out there writing papers with my name+surname. The name is not that important or useful for that. –  Trylks Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 14:21

The answer of David Z covers all important aspects regarding the name choice. In order to prove your authorship to someone, you would have to show correspondence letters with the publisher. You will typically receive several of those, the most important one being the acceptance letter stating that the publisher will publish your manuscript. If you show these to anybody, it should be sufficient proof that you are an author, especially if the address on the letter can be clearly linked to you.

Note that this is not just an issue with using pseudonyms. Anybody with a sufficiently common name will face exactly the same problem.

I have a legal (official) transliteration of my surname (family name) from the Greek alphabet to the Latin one on all my official documents. I consistently use for many years now another transliteration (just one letter difference) of my surname in all the publications I have produced until now. I have never had a problem with the name tag in my conference badge or the hotel reservation or paying the conference registration or anything. Nobody seems to care until now. The one and only exception was just one time that I needed to issue a travel visa for entering a country; in that case the embassy staff questioned me why my official surname did not match the invitation letter sent by the conference organizers to invite me to present in the conference. The visa was issued without any hassle in the end.

It is permissable to adapt one's name for publication.

But to avoid the circumstance that you fear, i.e. that you may have difficulty "proving" your publications if your legal name is somewhat different, you should ensure that your nom de plume (assumed name for an author) is unique in your Department at the time of publication .

Your proof lies in your academic affiliation at the time of publication. Once you are the only person with that name (or assumed name) then you are safe and sound.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged publications personal-name ..

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Alternatives to Research Papers

Creative alternatives to traditional research papers: Undergrads and Scholarly Communication

The ability to write a finely crafted, well documented, and thought provoking research paper is a hallmark of a fine liberal arts education. Understanding how knowledge is created, how thoughts build upon previous thoughts, how the written language has given rise and perpetuates cultures, how all of these can be found in the scholarly communication housed in their fine research libraries, these are a few of the noble ends of undergraduate education and are the building blocks of information literacy.

Putting thoughts to paper, supporting them with evidence, or contradicting them without bias, push students to new intellectual levels. The skills needed to get to that point are myriad. By sequencing research assignments, faculty can provide feedback throughout the writing process prior to the final assessment. Students appreciate this. In courses where research papers are not appropriate or applicable, assigning one or two gems from Indra’s “research” net allows students to practice the craft in small developmental increments. Students will need to actively engage in and ultimately master those individual skills or thought processes thereby building their confidence. Future faculty will be in receipt of these gifts.

Here are some ideas which provide practice in segments of the research process. They require students to become familiar with scholarly research tools and techniques. Please contact your liaison librarian for library instruction sessions, if desired.

All but the Research Paper

• Topic with several good questions to explore
• Annotated bibliography of useful sources which explore those questions
• Outline of paper
• Thesis statement
• Opening paragraph and summary
• Objective: Focuses on the process of research and the elements of a paper

Research Log

• Assignment: While doing topic research, students keep a record of their actions: methodology, resources consulted (books, databases, Web searches), keywords or subject headings searched, noting both successes and failures.
• Objective: Provides a good introduction to how information and scholarly communication are organized. Encourages reflection on the decisions researchers must make. Focuses on the importance of terminology.

Literature Review

• Assignment: Review the literature on a specific topic for a given time period.
• Objective: Reveals the purpose of a literature review. Provides students with opportunities to engage in the discipline’s printed matter.

Review Update

• Assignment: Using a non-current review article, update the topic with current sources
• Objective: Introduces students to literature reviews, subject indexes, and reference sources. Demonstrates the evolution of a particular topic and the scholarly communication surrounding it. Also requires students to analyze, synthesize, and integrate the ideas they find. Students will utilize printed and electronic resources to identify pertinent information

Poster Session

• Assignment: Research a topic and present it as a poster which other students will use to learn about the topic.
• Objective: Requires use of scholarly resources, research skills, concise communication, and synthesis of ideas.

Track a “Classic” Paper through a Citation Index

• Assignment: Choose a classic article by well-respected scholar and follow its trail into future publications. Trace the paper through the  Scopus database: back through the article’s references and forward in time to the works which cite the article.
• Objective: Teaches the mechanics of using a citation index and introduces students to the web of scholarly communication. Shows how ideas are introduced, distributed, integrated, refined, and developed over time.

Trace a Scholar’s Career

• Assignment: Explore a scholar/researcher’s career and ideas by locating biographical information, preparing a bibliography of his/her writings, analyzing the reaction of the scholarly community to the researcher’s work, and examining the scholarly network in which s/he works.
• Objective: Introduces students to the use of biographical and bibliographical tools, and exposes them to examples of scholarly dialogue.

Identify a Discipline’s Journals

• Assignment: How many journals are published in a given field? Identify journals “basic” to the discipline. Locate those held locally in print and online. Compare and contrast peer reviewed and popular or trade publications in the field. Analyze their subject focus, tone, audience, and impact.
• Objective: Encourages intellectual exploration, widens the range of possible resources, and demonstrates the importance of journal literature within disciplines. Students differentiate between similar journals.

Understand Primary Sources

• Assignment: Compare primary and secondary sources on the same topic. Have the students find a study in a popular or trade publication and then have them find the actual study. How well did the information transfer between sources? What was left out? How well did the popular/trade publication writer capture the essence of the primary source?
• Objective: Students differentiate between primary and secondary sources in a discipline. Shows when and why to use each.

Read the References

• Assignment: Acquire and read the articles cited in a research paper. Explain how each is related to the paper. In what circumstances is it appropriate to cite other papers? What different purposes do the citations serve?
• Objective: Shows when it is appropriate to recognize the contributions of previous authors in the development of new work.

Simulations of Real-Life Projects

• Assignment: Prepare a grant or research proposal, marketing or business plan, or solution to a tax, accounting or financial problem. State the specific problem to be solved or task to be accomplished. Provide background on the problem. How have these issues been dealt with in the past? What is the current thinking on this issue? How do you propose to solve the problem or what are the questions you need to ask to solve the problem? What support can you offer for your solution?
• Objective: Simulates for students how they will apply their information skills in the context of problems they will encounter in their discipline or career.

Narrowing a topic

• Assignment: Given a topic that is much too broad to handle in a short paper, find several sources (magazine, newspaper, or journal articles, chapters in books or reference books) to assist in refining the focus. For example, refine the topic Ethics in Sports down to Drug use in Track and Field and further down to doping in the 2004 Olympics Track and Field events.
• Objective: Teach students how to narrow a topic as well as what types of sources they might find useful in doing so.

Other ideas

• Annotate an article for a novice reader.
• Write or create a piece of music, art, or creative writing in a particular style or genre
• Put on a conference complete with poster sessions, panels, papers, etc.
• Create an anthology of readings complete with an introduction and reading summaries
• Create a pathfinder or website of different types of information sources on a topic

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Words related to research paper are not direct synonyms, but are associated with the word research paper . Browse related words to learn more about word associations.

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All in a name: How research paper titles can make or break

Writing style and grammar can affect an article’s citations. 

Credit: CulturalEyes - AusSoc2/ Alamy Stock Photo

Writing style and grammar can affect an article’s citations.

21 December 2016

CulturalEyes - AusSoc2/ Alamy Stock Photo

The impact and influence of research papers can be adversely affected by long titles, too many authors and poor punctuation, new research has found.

A review of more than 150,000 papers submitted to the United Kingdom’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) database in 2014 found the style of a paper’s title impacted the number of citations it would typically receive. In most disciplines, articles with shorter, succinct titles had more citations. The analysis , published in the journal Scientometrics , suggests that writing styles can contribute to a paper’s overall impact.

John Hudson, the study’s author and a professor of economics from the University of Bath , said many academics published papers without giving much thought to the title, even though it is an important tool in catching readers’ attention. “I was interested in whether the style of the title had an impact on journal citations,” Hudson told the Nature Index, “I wanted to know whether this was a discernibly measurable aspect impacting on citations.”

Hudson used an econometric package program, STATA, and statistical modeling to examine the REF data. The results found that citations increased with titles that used colons, and declined with the use of question marks. “Evidently asking the reader a question is not an optimal strategy,” says Hudson.

Different strokes

Headline length and style varied with disciplines. For example, titles on public health articles were often longest, averaging 117 characters. This was followed by clinical medicine and agriculture. Philosophy and economics papers had the shortest titles. Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of sociology papers had a colon in their title, compared to less than one in ten mathematics titles. “People working in that discipline will be influenced by what they read in journals and that includes the style of the title.”

Apart from title characteristics, Hudson found the number of authors on papers was much greater in the sciences than the social sciences, which were in turn higher than in the arts and humanities. “Even within the sciences there are substantial differences, with mathematicians tending to work in small groups, whilst clinical medicine often saw many more collaborators.”

Hudson’s previous research on economics papers found a link between papers with fewer authors and shorter titles, which had higher rates of citations. However, the impact of writing style on a paper’s citation rate over time is hard to measure, he says.

Getting your research noticed

Hudson says his work shows that it takes more than just high-quality research for a paper to reach its intended audience. “There are many black holes in excellent journals, such as papers with few citations. And equally there are many highly-cited papers in what people might think of as lesser journals,” he says.

“What matters most is the quality of the research and the paper. However, given that, if you have a high-quality output, why not do all you can to promote it.”

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Effective Transition Words for Research Papers

What are transition words in academic writing?

A transition is a change from one idea to another idea in writing or speaking and can be achieved using transition terms or phrases. These transitions are usually placed at the beginning of sentences, independent clauses, and paragraphs and thus establish a specific relationship between ideas or groups of ideas. Transitions are used to enhance cohesion in your paper and make its logical development clearer to readers.

Types of Transition Words

Transitions accomplish many different objectives. We can divide all transitions into four basic categories:

• Additive transitions  signal to the reader that you are adding or referencing information
• Adversative transitions  indicate conflict or disagreement between pieces of information
• Causal transitions  point to consequences and show cause-and-effect relationships
• Sequential transitions  clarify the order and sequence of information and the overall structure of the paper

Additive Transitions

These terms signal that new information is being added (between both sentences and paragraphs), introduce or highlight information, refer to something that was just mentioned, add a similar situation, or identify certain information as important.

Adversative Transitions

These terms and phrases distinguish facts, arguments, and other information, whether by contrasting and showing differences; by conceding points or making counterarguments; by dismissing the importance of a fact or argument; or replacing and suggesting alternatives.

Causal Transitions

These terms and phrases signal the reasons, conditions, purposes, circumstances, and cause-and-effect relationships. These transitions often come after an important point in the research paper has been established or to explore hypothetical relationships or circumstances.

Sequential Transitions

These transition terms and phrases organize your paper by numerical sequence; by showing continuation in thought or action; by referring to previously-mentioned information; by indicating digressions; and, finally, by concluding and summing up your paper. Sequential transitions are essential to creating structure and helping the reader understand the logical development through your paper’s methods, results, and analysis.

How to Choose Transitions in Academic Writing

Transitions are commonplace elements in writing, but they are also powerful tools that can be abused or misapplied if one isn’t careful. Here are some ways to ensure you are using transitions effectively.

• Check for overused, awkward, or absent transitions during the paper editing process. Don’t spend too much time trying to find the “perfect” transition while writing the paper.
• When you find a suitable place where a transition could connect ideas, establish relationships, and make it easier for the reader to understand your point, use the list to find a suitable transition term or phrase.
• Similarly, if you have repeated some terms again and again, find a substitute transition from the list and use that instead. This will help vary your writing and enhance the communication of ideas.
• Read the beginning of each paragraph. Did you include a transition? If not, look at the information in that paragraph and the preceding paragraph and ask yourself: “How does this information connect?” Then locate the best transition from the list.
• Check the structure of your paper—are your ideas clearly laid out in order? You should be able to locate sequence terms such as “first,” “second,” “following this,” “another,” “in addition,” “finally,” “in conclusion,” etc. These terms will help outline your paper for the reader.

For more helpful information on academic writing and the journal publication process, visit Wordvice’s  Academic Resources  Page. And be sure to check out Wordvice’s professional English editing services if you are looking for  paper editing and proofreading  after composing your academic document.

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• How to Write the Best Journal Submissions Cover Letter
• 100+ Strong Verbs That Will Make Your Research Writing Amazing
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Other Resources Around the Web

• MSU Writing Center.  Transition Words.
• UW-Madison Writing Center.  Transition Words and Phrases.

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Methodology

Research Methods | Definitions, Types, Examples

Research methods are specific procedures for collecting and analyzing data. Developing your research methods is an integral part of your research design . When planning your methods, there are two key decisions you will make.

First, decide how you will collect data . Your methods depend on what type of data you need to answer your research question :

• Qualitative vs. quantitative : Will your data take the form of words or numbers?
• Primary vs. secondary : Will you collect original data yourself, or will you use data that has already been collected by someone else?
• Descriptive vs. experimental : Will you take measurements of something as it is, or will you perform an experiment?

Second, decide how you will analyze the data .

• For quantitative data, you can use statistical analysis methods to test relationships between variables.
• For qualitative data, you can use methods such as thematic analysis to interpret patterns and meanings in the data.

Table of contents

Methods for collecting data, examples of data collection methods, methods for analyzing data, examples of data analysis methods, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research methods.

Data is the information that you collect for the purposes of answering your research question . The type of data you need depends on the aims of your research.

Qualitative vs. quantitative data

Your choice of qualitative or quantitative data collection depends on the type of knowledge you want to develop.

For questions about ideas, experiences and meanings, or to study something that can’t be described numerically, collect qualitative data .

If you want to develop a more mechanistic understanding of a topic, or your research involves hypothesis testing , collect quantitative data .

You can also take a mixed methods approach , where you use both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Primary vs. secondary research

Primary research is any original data that you collect yourself for the purposes of answering your research question (e.g. through surveys , observations and experiments ). Secondary research is data that has already been collected by other researchers (e.g. in a government census or previous scientific studies).

If you are exploring a novel research question, you’ll probably need to collect primary data . But if you want to synthesize existing knowledge, analyze historical trends, or identify patterns on a large scale, secondary data might be a better choice.

Descriptive vs. experimental data

In descriptive research , you collect data about your study subject without intervening. The validity of your research will depend on your sampling method .

In experimental research , you systematically intervene in a process and measure the outcome. The validity of your research will depend on your experimental design .

To conduct an experiment, you need to be able to vary your independent variable , precisely measure your dependent variable, and control for confounding variables . If it’s practically and ethically possible, this method is the best choice for answering questions about cause and effect.

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Your data analysis methods will depend on the type of data you collect and how you prepare it for analysis.

Data can often be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, survey responses could be analyzed qualitatively by studying the meanings of responses or quantitatively by studying the frequencies of responses.

Qualitative analysis methods

Qualitative analysis is used to understand words, ideas, and experiences. You can use it to interpret data that was collected:

• From open-ended surveys and interviews , literature reviews , case studies , ethnographies , and other sources that use text rather than numbers.
• Using non-probability sampling methods .

Qualitative analysis tends to be quite flexible and relies on the researcher’s judgement, so you have to reflect carefully on your choices and assumptions and be careful to avoid research bias .

Quantitative analysis methods

Quantitative analysis uses numbers and statistics to understand frequencies, averages and correlations (in descriptive studies) or cause-and-effect relationships (in experiments).

You can use quantitative analysis to interpret data that was collected either:

• During an experiment .
• Using probability sampling methods .

Because the data is collected and analyzed in a statistically valid way, the results of quantitative analysis can be easily standardized and shared among researchers.

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If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Chi square test of independence
• Statistical power
• Descriptive statistics
• Degrees of freedom
• Pearson correlation
• Null hypothesis
• Double-blind study
• Case-control study
• Research ethics
• Data collection
• Hypothesis testing
• Structured interviews

Research bias

• Hawthorne effect
• Unconscious bias
• Recall bias
• Halo effect
• Self-serving bias
• Information bias

Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.

Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses . Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail.

In mixed methods research , you use both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to answer your research question .

A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population . Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research. For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.

In statistics, sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population.

The research methods you use depend on the type of data you need to answer your research question .

• If you want to measure something or test a hypothesis , use quantitative methods . If you want to explore ideas, thoughts and meanings, use qualitative methods .
• If you want to analyze a large amount of readily-available data, use secondary data. If you want data specific to your purposes with control over how it is generated, collect primary data.
• If you want to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables , use experimental methods. If you want to understand the characteristics of a research subject, use descriptive methods.

Methodology refers to the overarching strategy and rationale of your research project . It involves studying the methods used in your field and the theories or principles behind them, in order to develop an approach that matches your objectives.

Methods are the specific tools and procedures you use to collect and analyze data (for example, experiments, surveys , and statistical tests ).

In shorter scientific papers, where the aim is to report the findings of a specific study, you might simply describe what you did in a methods section .

In a longer or more complex research project, such as a thesis or dissertation , you will probably include a methodology section , where you explain your approach to answering the research questions and cite relevant sources to support your choice of methods.

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