Top 21 must-have digital tools for researchers

Last updated

12 May 2023

Reviewed by

Jean Kaluza

Research drives many decisions across various industries, including:

Uncovering customer motivations and behaviors to design better products

Assessing whether a market exists for your product or service

Running clinical studies to develop a medical breakthrough

Conducting effective and shareable research can be a painstaking process. Manual processes are sluggish and archaic, and they can also be inaccurate. That’s where advanced online tools can help. 

The right tools can enable businesses to lean into research for better forecasting, planning, and more reliable decisions. 

  • Why do researchers need research tools?

Research is challenging and time-consuming. Analyzing data , running focus groups , reading research papers , and looking for useful insights take plenty of heavy lifting. 

These days, researchers can’t just rely on manual processes. Instead, they’re using advanced tools that:

Speed up the research process

Enable new ways of reaching customers

Improve organization and accuracy

Allow better monitoring throughout the process

Enhance collaboration across key stakeholders

  • The most important digital tools for researchers

Some tools can help at every stage, making researching simpler and faster.

They ensure accurate and efficient information collection, management, referencing, and analysis. 

Some of the most important digital tools for researchers include:

Research management tools

Research management can be a complex and challenging process. Some tools address the various challenges that arise when referencing and managing papers. 

.css-10ptwjf{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;background:transparent;border:0;color:inherit;cursor:pointer;-webkit-flex-shrink:0;-ms-flex-negative:0;flex-shrink:0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-10ptwjf:disabled{opacity:0.6;pointer-events:none;} Zotero

Coined as a personal research assistant, Zotero is a tool that brings efficiency to the research process. Zotero helps researchers collect, organize, annotate, and share research easily. 

Zotero integrates with internet browsers, so researchers can easily save an article, publication, or research study on the platform for later. 

The tool also has an advanced organizing system to allow users to label, tag, and categorize information for faster insights and a seamless analysis process. 

Messy paper stacks––digital or physical––are a thing of the past with Paperpile. This reference management tool integrates with Google Docs, saving users time with citations and paper management. 

Referencing, researching, and gaining insights is much cleaner and more productive, as all papers are in the same place. Plus, it’s easier to find a paper when you need it. 

Acting as a single source of truth (SSOT), Dovetail houses research from the entire organization in a simple-to-use place. Researchers can use the all-in-one platform to collate and store data from interviews , forms, surveys , focus groups, and more. 

Dovetail helps users quickly categorize and analyze data to uncover truly actionable insights . This helps organizations bring customer insights into every decision for better forecasting, planning, and decision-making. 

Dovetail integrates with other helpful tools like ​Slack, Atlassian, Notion, and Zapier for a truly efficient workflow.

Putting together papers and referencing sources can be a huge time consumer. EndNote claims that researchers waste 200,000 hours per year formatting citations. 

To address the issue, the tool formats citations automatically––simultaneously creating a bibliography while the user writes. 

EndNote is also a cloud-based system that allows remote working, multiple-user interaction and collaboration, and seamless working on different devices. 

Information survey tools

Surveys are a common way to gain data from customers. These tools can make the process simpler and more cost-effective. 

With ready-made survey templates––to collect NPS data, customer effort scores , five-star surveys, and more––getting going with Delighted is straightforward. 

Delighted helps teams collect and analyze survey feedback without needing any technical knowledge. The templates are customizable, so you can align the content with your brand. That way, the survey feels like it’s coming from your company, not a third party. 

SurveyMonkey

With millions of customers worldwide, SurveyMonkey is another leader in online surveys. SurveyMonkey offers hundreds of templates that researchers can use to set up and deploy surveys quickly. 

Whether your survey is about team performance, hotel feedback, post-event feedback, or an employee exit, SurveyMonkey has a ready-to-use template. 

Typeform offers free templates you can quickly embed, which comes with a point of difference: It designs forms and surveys with people in mind, focusing on customer enjoyment. 

Typeform employs the ‘one question at a time’ method to keep engagement rates and completions high. It focuses on surveys that feel more like conversations than a list of questions.

Web data analysis tools

Collecting data can take time––especially technical information. Some tools make that process simpler. 

For those conducting clinical research, data collection can be incredibly time-consuming. Teamscope provides an online platform to collect and manage data simply and easily. 

Researchers and medical professionals often collect clinical data through paper forms or digital means. Those are too easy to lose, tricky to manage, and challenging to collaborate on. 

With Teamscope, you can easily collect, store, and electronically analyze data like patient-reported outcomes and surveys. 

Heap is a digital insights platform providing context on the entire customer journey . This helps businesses improve customer feedback , conversion rates, and loyalty. 

Through Heap, you can seamlessly view and analyze the customer journey across all platforms and touchpoints, whether through the app or website. 

Another analytics tool, Smartlook, combines quantitative and qualitative analytics into one platform. This helps organizations understand user behavior and make crucial improvements. 

Smartlook is useful for analyzing web pages, purchasing flows, and optimizing conversion rates. 

Project management tools

Managing multiple research projects across many teams can be complex and challenging. Project management tools can ease the burden on researchers. 

Visual productivity tool Trello helps research teams manage their projects more efficiently. Trello makes product tracking easier with:

A range of workflow options

Unique project board layouts

Advanced descriptions

Integrations

Trello also works as an SSOT to stay on top of projects and collaborate effectively as a team. 

To connect research, workflows, and teams, Airtable provides a clean interactive interface. 

With Airtable, it’s simple to place research projects in a list view, workstream, or road map to synthesize information and quickly collaborate. The Sync feature makes it easy to link all your research data to one place for faster action. 

For product teams, Asana gathers development, copywriting, design, research teams, and product managers in one space. 

As a task management platform, Asana offers all the expected features and more, including time-tracking and Jira integration. The platform offers reporting alongside data collection methods , so it’s a favorite for product teams in the tech space.

Grammar checker tools

Grammar tools ensure your research projects are professional and proofed. 

No one’s perfect, especially when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and grammar. That’s where Grammarly can help. 

Grammarly’s AI-powered platform reviews your content and corrects any mistakes. Through helpful integrations with other platforms––such as Gmail, Google Docs, Twitter, and LinkedIn––it’s simple to spellcheck as you go. 

Another helpful grammar tool is Trinka AI. Trinka is specifically for technical and academic styles of writing. It doesn’t just correct mistakes in spelling, punctuation, and grammar; it also offers explanations and additional information when errors show. 

Researchers can also use Trinka to enhance their writing and:

Align it with technical and academic styles

Improve areas like syntax and word choice

Discover relevant suggestions based on the content topic

Plagiarism checker tools

Avoiding plagiarism is crucial for the integrity of research. Using checker tools can ensure your work is original. 

Plagiarism checker Quetext uses DeepSearch™ technology to quickly sort through online content to search for signs of plagiarism. 

With color coding, annotations, and an overall score, it’s easy to identify conflict areas and fix them accordingly. 

Duplichecker

Another helpful plagiarism tool is Duplichecker, which scans pieces of content for issues. The service is free for content up to 1000 words, with paid options available after that. 

If plagiarism occurs, a percentage identifies how much is duplicate content. However, the interface is relatively basic, offering little additional information.  

Journal finder tools

Finding the right journals for your project can be challenging––especially with the plethora of inaccurate or predatory content online. Journal finder tools can solve this issue. 

Enago Journal Finder

The Enago Open Access Journal Finder sorts through online journals to verify their legitimacy. Through Engao, you can discover pre-vetted, high-quality journals through a validated journal index. 

Enago’s search tool also helps users find relevant journals for their subject matter, speeding up the research process. 

JournalFinder

JournalFinder is another journal tool that’s popular with academics and researchers. It makes the process of discovering relevant journals fast by leaning into a machine-learning algorithm.

This is useful for discovering key information and finding the right journals to publish and share your work in. 

Social networking for researchers

Collaboration between researchers can improve the accuracy and sharing of information. Promoting research findings can also be essential for public health, safety, and more. 

While typical social networks exist, some are specifically designed for academics.

ResearchGate

Networking platform ResearchGate encourages researchers to connect, collaborate, and share within the scientific community. With 20 million researchers on the platform, it's a popular choice. 

ResearchGate is founded on an intention to advance research. The platform provides topic pages for easy connection within a field of expertise and access to millions of publications to help users stay up to date. 

Academia is another commonly used platform that connects 220 million academics and researchers within their specialties. 

The platform aims to accelerate research with discovery tools and grow a researcher’s audience to promote their ideas. 

On Academia, users can access 47 million PDFs for free. They cover topics from mechanical engineering to applied economics and child psychology. 

  • Expedited research with the power of tools

For researchers, finding data and information can be time-consuming and complex to manage. That’s where the power of tools comes in. 

Manual processes are slow, outdated, and have a larger potential for inaccuracies. 

Leaning into tools can help researchers speed up their processes, conduct efficient research, boost their accuracy, and share their work effectively. 

With tools available for project and data management, web data collection, and journal finding, researchers have plenty of assistance at their disposal.

When it comes to connecting with customers, advanced tools boost customer connection while continually bringing their needs and wants into products and services.

What are primary research tools?

Primary research is data and information that you collect firsthand through surveys, customer interviews, or focus groups. 

Secondary research is data and information from other sources, such as journals, research bodies, or online content. 

Primary researcher tools use methods like surveys and customer interviews. You can use these tools to collect, store, or manage information effectively and uncover more accurate insights. 

What is the difference between tools and methods in research?

Research methods relate to how researchers gather information and data. 

For example, surveys, focus groups, customer interviews, and A/B testing are research methods that gather information. 

On the other hand, tools assist areas of research. Researchers may use tools to more efficiently gather data, store data securely, or uncover insights. 

Tools can improve research methods, ensuring efficiency and accuracy while reducing complexity.

Should you be using a customer insights hub?

Do you want to discover previous research faster?

Do you share your research findings with others?

Do you analyze research data?

Start for free today, add your research, and get to key insights faster

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Literature Review

30 Best Online Research Tools Essential For All Researchers

Discover the 30 best online research tools essential for all researchers. Explore top research tools to enhance your productivity and accuracy.

Aug 10, 2024

Illustration Data on Screen - Research Tools

Researching a topic for a paper can feel overwhelming, especially when you think about the dozens of sources you need to gather and read before you can even start writing. The process can be so daunting that you might even postpone getting started until the last minute. 

Luckily, research tools can take some of the stress off your shoulders by helping you locate, organize, and make sense of all that information. In this guide, we’ll focus on one type of research tool: AI-driven literature search tools. We’ll explore what they are, how they work, and why you should consider using them for your next research project. 

One AI research tool worth mentioning right up front is Otio’s AI research and writing partner. This software can help you write efficient research papers and get unique study material with AI by streamlining the literature search, organization, and writing processes.

Table Of Contents

What is a research tool, types of research tools, which tool is best for research, why are research tools important, supercharge your researching ability with otio — try otio for free today.

Person Sitting - Research Tools

Research tools include the devices or instruments used to collect data , such as a paper questionnaire or computer-assisted interviewing system. They are used to measure a variable or to collect the information needed to answer a research question . Careful selection of research tools can help the researcher achieve goals and save time.

Related Reading

• Systematic Review Vs Meta Analysis • Impact Evaluation • How To Critique A Research Article • How To Synthesize Sources • Annotation Techniques • Skimming And Scanning • Types Of Literature Reviews • Literature Review Table • Literature Review Matrix • How To Increase Reading Speed And Comprehension • How To Read Research Papers • How To Summarize A Research Paper • Literature Gap

People Working - Research Tools

1. Data Collection Tools: Go Beyond the Basics  

Surveys and questionnaires help researchers gather quantitative and qualitative data by asking participants straightforward questions. Tools like Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, and Qualtrics help researchers create and distribute surveys and analyze responses. 

As you seek to understand a specific research problem, collecting data from existing literature can be helpful. However, you may also need to collect original data to gather the most relevant and up-to-date information. This process often begins with surveys and questionnaires. 

Data Collection Tools 

Surveys and Questionnaires 

Interviews and Focus Groups 

Observation 

Tools for Data Analysis 

Literature Review Tools 

Collaboration Tools 

Ethical Research Tools 

Bibliometric and Citation Analysis Tools 

Data Storage and Management 

Experimentation and Simulation Tools 

Writing and Publishing Tools 

Field Research Tools   

Interviews and focus groups also facilitate original data collection, especially for qualitative research. While surveys and questionnaires typically include predetermined questions, interviews allow researchers to ask participants open-ended questions to explore specific topics in detail. Focus groups involve a discussion with a small group of participants led by a moderator. Both methods can use digital tools (e.g., Zoom and Microsoft Teams) to collect data remotely. Specialized software like NVivo can also help researchers code and analyze interview and focus group data. Collecting data through observation can help researchers gain insights into research problems in real-world settings. 

This process involves creating tools to record observations about people, processes, or events systematically. For example, researchers can use tally sheets or observation logs to track specific behaviors or occurrences. Alternatively, digital apps like Evernote and Trello can help researchers organize and analyze qualitative observational data.  

2. Data Analysis Tools: Making Sense of Research Data  

Once you collect data, you need to analyze it to draw meaningful conclusions. Statistics software allows researchers to input quantitative data and perform calculations to understand the numbers better. These tools help simplify the data analysis process and ensure accuracy. Researchers often rely on coding and thematic analysis for qualitative data to make sense of the information before concluding. Data visualization tools help researchers create graphs and charts to illustrate their findings. 

Statistical analysis software like SPSS, R, SAS, and Stata are used for statistical testing and data manipulation. Qualitative Analysis. NVivo and Atlas. ti is used to analyze textual data through coding and thematic analysis—data Visualization Tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Excel for creating visual representations of data. Text mining tools like Python (with NLTK or SpaCy) and RapidMiner are used to analyze large volumes of text data.  

3. Literature Review Tools: Build a Strong Foundation for Your Research  

Before starting a research project, conducting a thorough literature review is crucial. This process allows researchers to identify existing studies related to their topics of interest, understand their findings, and determine how to address gaps in knowledge. Using literature review tools can help simplify this process so that you can efficiently gather and analyze relevant information to build a solid foundation for your research. 

Data Collection Tools

Field Research Tools  

Academic Databases

Google Scholar, PubMed, JSTOR, and Scopus are used to access academic papers and articles. Reference Management Tools: Zotero, EndNote, and Mendeley manage citations and references. Systematic Review Tools: Covidence and Rayyan conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses.  

4. Collaboration Tools: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work  

Depending on the scope of your research, you may need to collaborate with others to complete your project. Collaboration tools help streamline communication and organization among research teams, making it easier to work together toward a common goal.

Surveys and Questionnaires

Collaboration Tools

Data Storage and Management

Document Sharing Google Docs , Dropbox, and SharePoint for collaborative document creation and sharing. Project Management Tools like Trello, Asana, and Basecamp to manage research projects. Communication Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom for real-time communication and collaboration.  

5. Ethical Research Tools: Ensure Your Research Meets Ethical Standards  

No matter your field of study, conducting ethical research is essential. Not only can it protect research participants, but it can also improve the quality and credibility of your study. Ethical research tools can help you streamline processes like obtaining informed consent and anonymizing sensitive data. 

Informed Consent Management REDCap and Qualtrics on managing participant consent digitally. Anonymization Tools like ARX and sdcMicro to anonymize sensitive data.  

6. Bibliometric and Citation Analysis Tools: Measure Research Impact  

Before you start a research project, consider how your work will contribute to existing literature. Understanding the impact of research can help you gauge how the academic community may receive your project. Bibliometric and citation analysis tools can help you measure existing research impact and assess how your work will contribute to future studies. 

Citation Tracking Web of Science and Scopus for tracking citations and measuring impact. Bibliometric Analysis Tools like VOSviewer and Bibliometrics are used to analyze publication trends and co-authorship networks.  

7. Data Storage and Management: Keep Your Research Organized  

Research data can quickly accumulate, whether you’re collecting information from existing literature or conducting original research. Data storage and management tools can help you organize your files so you don’t get lost in a sea of information. 

Tools for Data Analysis

Cloud Storage Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox for storing research data. Data Management Plans DMPTool for creating and managing data management plans. Database Management MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft Access for structured data storage.  

8. Experimentation and Simulation Tools: Carrying Out Research  

Some research projects involve conducting experiments, simulations, or other hands-on approaches to gather data. Tools for experimentation and simulation help researchers carry out these processes efficiently and effectively.

Laboratory Equipment Tools like CRISPR technology, spectrometers, and other lab equipment for experimental research. Simulation Software MATLAB, Simulink, and ANSYS for modeling and simulating complex systems.  

9.  Writing and Publishing Tools: Share Your Research With Others  

Once your research is complete and you’ve written your paper, you’ll want to publish your findings to share them with others in your field. Writing and publishing tools can help you improve the quality of your writing and navigate the publication process. 

Interviews and Focus Groups

Writing and Publishing Tools

Writing Assistance Grammarly and Hemingway for improving writing quality. Plagiarism Detection Turnitin and iThenticate to check for originality in research writing. Publishing Platforms Overleaf for LaTeX documents and journal submission platforms like Manuscript Central.  

10. Field Research Tools: Collecting Data Outside the Lab  

Some research projects require collecting data outside the lab in the real world. Field research tools can help you conduct studies in natural settings. 

Bibliometric and Citation Analysis Tools 1

GPS and GIS Tools ArcGIS and QGIS are used for mapping and spatial analysis in field research. Mobile Data Collection KoboToolbox and Open Data Kit (ODK) collect data in remote locations.

Person Typing on Keyboard - Research Tools

1. Otio: Your AI Research & Writing Partner 

The amount of information available today can be overwhelming. Otio is a tool designed to help researchers manage their research workflow. Researchers can collect data from various sources, extract critical takeaways with AI-generated notes, and draft outputs based on the research collected.  

2. Zotero: Your Research Assistant 

Zotero is a free tool that helps researchers collect, organize, and share their research. The personal research assistant integrates with most internet browsers, so when you find a relevant article in your research, it’s easy to save it to Zotero for later. Zotero also has advanced organizational features to help you label and categorize your findings for seamless analysis.  

3. Paperpile: Say Goodbye to Messy Paper Stacks 

Paperpile is a reference management tool that helps researchers keep their papers organized. The tool integrates with Google Docs, so researchers can avoid messy paper stacks and easily manage citations while writing their papers. 

4. Dovetail: Your Single Source of Truth for Research 

Dovetail is an all-in-one research repository that helps researchers collate, analyze, and share research findings quickly and easily. The tool is a single source of truth (SSOT) for all research data, allowing organizations to uncover actionable insights for better decision-making. Dovetail integrates with tools like Notion, Slack, and Jira to streamline workflows. 

5. EndNote: Automate the Time-Consuming Parts of Research 

EndNote is a reference management tool that automates citation formatting. The tool claims researchers waste 200,000 hours per year formatting citations. With EndNote, citations are formatted automatically as you write, creating a bibliography in the background. The cloud-based system allows for remote collaboration and access across devices. 

6. Glimpse: Get Real-Time Insights on the Latest Trends 

Glimpse is a research tool that helps users design and launch surveys quickly for real-time insights. Max Iskiev, market research analyst at HubSpot, says, “Glimpse is my favorite research tool. It’s quick and easy to use, allowing me to design and launch short surveys for real-time insights on trending topics.” 

Not only is Glimpse valuable for doing quick pulse-checks on the latest trends, but it also leverages the power of AI for even deeper insights. “Glimpse really shines when it comes to open-ended questions, using natural language processing and AI to analyze emotion and sentiment, saving time, and offering invaluable insights,” Iskiev shared. 

7. Delighted: Survey Customers with Ease 

Delighted helps teams collect and analyze survey feedback without needing any technical knowledge. The tool has ready-made survey templates to collect NPS data, customer effort scores, five-star surveys, and more. The customizable templates can align with your brand, so the study feels like it’s coming from your company, not a third-party tool. 

8. SurveyMonkey: A Leader in Online Surveys 

SurveyMonkey is a leader in online surveys, with millions of customers worldwide. The research tool offers hundreds of templates researchers can use to set up and deploy surveys quickly. Whether your survey concerns team performance, hotel feedback, post-event feedback, or an employee exit, SurveyMonkey has a ready-to-use template. 

9. Typeform: The Survey Tool That Puts the User First 

Typeform offers free templates you can quickly embed, which comes with a point of difference: It designs forms and surveys with people in mind, focusing on customer enjoyment. Typeform employs the ‘one question at a time’ method to keep engagement rates and completions high. It focuses on surveys that feel more like conversations than a list of questions. 

10. Answer the Public: Get Insight on What the Public Is Searching For 

Answer the Public is a sister product to UberSuggest, both brainchildren of Neil Patel. Answer: The Public watches what people are searching for and lets you track how things change over time. By studying the changes, you can be at the front of trends — positive or negative — so you can respond to the changes quickly. It’s billed as an excellent tool for public relations professionals to give them a heads-up on how their company is faring in the public eye. If you fall on the wrong side of public sentiment, you can be right on top of salvaging the situation and improving to regain trust. If you’re doing something right and see gains in positive engagement, you know to keep up what you’re doing and may even want to expand upon it. 

11. Google Scholar: Your Go-To for Academic Research 

Google Scholar helps you find academic articles, theses, and abstracts. When looking for scholarly research, this tool should be your first stop. Google Scholar helps you find related works, locate full documents in your school library, and access scholarly research. Google created Google Scholar, which differs significantly from a general online search. Google Scholar combines academic articles and ranks them based on the authors, publication location, and citation record. That means the top results generally represent the most reliable scholarship on your topic. 

12. JSTOR: A Trusted Resource for Academic Research 

For journal articles, books, images, and even primary sources, JSTOR ranks among the best online resources for academic research. JSTOR's collection spans 75 disciplines, with strengths in the humanities and social sciences. The academic research database includes complete runs of over 2,800 journals. If you're looking for images, turn to Artstor, which offers over 2.5 million images of the arts, sciences, and literature. However, JSTOR is not an open-access database. That means you'll need to log in through your university library, which typically includes off-campus access. 

13. Team scope: Simplifying Clinical Research Data Collection 

For those conducting clinical research, data collection can be incredibly time-consuming. Teamscope provides an online platform to collect and manage data simply and easily. Researchers and medical professionals often collect clinical data through paper forms or digital means. Those are too easy to lose, tricky to manage, and challenging to collaborate on. With Teamscope, you can easily collect, store, and electronically analyze data like patient-reported outcomes and surveys. 

14. Heap: Improve Customer Research with Digital Insights 

Heap is a digital insights platform that provides context for the entire customer journey. This helps businesses improve customer feedback, conversion rates, and loyalty. Through Heap, you can seamlessly view and analyze the customer journey across all platforms and touchpoints, whether through the app or website. 

15. Smartlook: User Behavior Analytics for Better Research 

Another analytics tool, Smartlook, combines quantitative and qualitative analytics into one platform. This helps organizations understand user behavior and make crucial improvements. Smartlook is useful for analyzing web pages, purchasing flows, and optimizing conversion rates. 

16. Library of Congress: The World’s Largest Library 

As the most extensive library in the world, the Library of Congress is a unique online resource for academic research. Students can search its collections for digital resources, videos, audio recordings, photographs, and maps. The library's materials include notated music, web archives, legislation, and 3D objects. You'll find materials for almost any topic in its extensive collections. You can search historic American newspapers from 1777-1963 with the Chronicling America tool or look up pirate trials in another digital collection. 

17. PubMed Central: Open-Access Biomedical Research 

The National Library of Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, runs PubMed Central. Founded in 2000, the database includes academic scholarship dating back to the 18th century. The resource connects college students with life sciences and biomedical academic sources. As an open-access database, PubMed Central offers free access to scholarly literature. Today, PubMed Central has over 7 million full-text records, making it an excellent resource for life sciences or medical students. 

18. Trello: Visual Productivity for Research Teams 

Visual productivity tool Trello helps research teams manage their projects more efficiently. Trello makes product tracking easier with A range of workflow options, Unique project board layouts, Tagging Advanced descriptions, and Integrations. Trello also works as an SSOT to stay on top of projects and collaborate effectively as a team. 

19. Airtable: A Clean Interface to Connect Research and Teams 

Airtable provides a clean, interactive interface to connect research, workflows, and teams. With Airtable, it’s simple to place research projects in a list view, workstream, or road map to synthesize information and quickly collaborate. The Sync feature makes it easy to link all your research data to one place for faster action. 

20. Asana: Streamline Research for Product Development 

For product teams, Asana gathers development, copywriting, design, research teams, and product managers in one space. As a task management platform, Asana offers all the expected features and more, including time-tracking and Jira integration. The platform offers reporting alongside data collection methods, so it’s a favorite for product teams in the tech space. 

21. Google Books: A Massive Database of Books 

Whether you're looking for a recent publication or an out-of-print book, you'll find it on Google Books. In 2019, Google announced that Google Books contains over 40 million books. You can enter any search term to find books that contain matches. You can download the full text of any book in the public domain, which includes 10 million titles. Make sure to check publisher and author information when using Google Books. The site also includes reference pages that link to book reviews. Keep in mind that you'll have more limited access to recent books. Still, Google Books is a significant first step to finding sources you can look for later at your campus library. 

22. Science.gov: A Resource for Scientific Research 

If you're looking for scientific research, Science.gov is an excellent option. The site provides full-text documents, scientific data, and other resources from federally funded research. 

A U.S. government site, Science.gov, searches more than 60 databases and 2,200 scientific websites. You'll find over 200 million pages of research and development information, including projects funded by 14 federal agencies. Students in any STEM field can benefit from the resource. 

23. Digital Commons Network: Access Peer-Reviewed Research 

University librarians curate the Digital Commons Network, which connects students with peer-reviewed articles. The site's other resources include dissertations, book chapters, conference proceedings, and working papers. The Digital Commons Network includes scholarly work from diverse disciplines, such as architecture, business, education, law, and the sciences. You can also access humanities, social sciences, and engineering scholarship through the network. 

24. Grammarly: Perfect Your Writing 

No one’s perfect, especially in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. That’s where Grammarly can help. Grammarly’s AI-powered platform reviews your content and corrects any mistakes. Through helpful integrations with other platforms––such as Gmail, Google Docs, Twitter, and LinkedIn––it’s simple to spellcheck as you go. 

25. Trinka: Improve Technical and Academic Writing 

Another helpful grammar tool is Trinka AI. Trinka is specifically for technical and academic styles of writing. It doesn’t just correct mistakes in spelling, punctuation, and grammar; it also offers explanations and additional information when errors show. 

26. ResearchGate: A Social Network for Researchers 

ResearchGate has been described as social networking for research scientists. However, ResearchGate is also an excellent option for finding open-access academic sources. Scholars upload their work to ResearchGate, making it accessible to the public. Over 20 million researchers worldwide use the site, which contains over 135 million publications. College students looking for scientific research can often find ResearchGate resources and connect with scholars. 

27. Duplichecker: Another Tool to Check for Plagiarism 

Another helpful plagiarism tool is Duplichecker, which scans pieces of content for issues. The service is free for content up to 1000 words, with paid options available after that. If plagiarism occurs, a percentage identifies how much duplicate content is. However, the interface is relatively basic, offering little additional information.  

28. WorldCat: A Database of Library Resources 

WorldCat is one of the best tools for looking for library resources. Connected to over 10,000 libraries, WorldCat is a database that allows you to search library collections. The database lists books and articles available at your local libraries, making it easier to find materials that are not available online. 

In addition to books, WorldCat contains music, videos, audiobooks, and scholarly articles. You can also find digital research materials, including photos. Logging into WorldCat through your university library, you can access full-text articles and other resources. You can also use WorldCat to find sources to request through an interlibrary loan. 

29. Enago Journal Finder: Find Academic Journals for Your Research 

The Enago Open Access Journal Finder sorts online journals to verify their legitimacy. Through Engao, you can discover pre-vetted, high-quality journals through a validated journal index. Enago’s search tool also helps users find relevant journals for their subject matter, speeding up the research process. 

30. JournalFinder: Another Tool to Find Academic Journals 

JournalFinder is another journal tool that’s popular with academics and researchers. It makes it possible to discover relevant journals quickly by leaning into a machine-learning algorithm. This is useful for discovering key information and finding suitable journals to publish and share your work.

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Otio helps you to collect a wide range of data sources. You can collect bookmarks, tweets, extensive books, articles, YouTube videos, and more—no more scattered information across multiple tools. 

How Otio Helps You Extract Key Takeaways

Otio helps you make sense of your research material with detailed AI-generated notes and a source-grounded Q&A chat. You can zero in on the critical information faster, making your research process more efficient. 

How Otio Helps You Create Research Outputs

Otio streamlines the process of writing research papers, essays, and reports. After you collect and analyze your research, you can create a draft using your gathered sources. This helps you go from the reading list to the first draft faster.

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1. Unlocked Doors: The Accessibility to Information Offered By Online Research Tools

Online research tools open the door to an immense amount of information, including academic papers, articles, journals, books, and statistics. This makes it easier to find relevant information on almost any topic. These tools also break down geographical barriers and allow users to access information worldwide, enabling a more comprehensive understanding of topics. 

2. Racing Ahead: The Efficiency and Speed of Online Research Tools

Online research tools enable users to find information quickly through search algorithms, filters, and indexes. This drastically reduces the time spent compared to traditional research methods. Many online tools also offer features like data visualization, trend analysis, and citation management, which streamline the research process. 

3. Team Players: Collaboration and Sharing Capabilities of Online Research Tools 

Tools like Google Scholar , Mendeley, and Zotero allow multiple users to collaborate, share resources, and build on each other's work, enhancing collaborative research efforts. Online tools often provide the latest information, helping researchers stay up-to-date with recent developments and discoveries. 

4. Accuracy and Reliability: Peer-Reviewed Sources and Citation Management

Many online research tools curate content from reputable and peer-reviewed sources, ensuring the information is accurate and reliable. Tools like EndNote and RefWorks help researchers properly cite sources, reducing the chances of plagiarism and increasing the credibility of their work. 

5. The Budget-Friendly Nature of Online Research Tools

Many online research tools are freely accessible or offer free services, reducing the cost of purchasing physical resources. Online platforms often host open-access journals, making high-quality research available to the public at no cost. 

6. Customization and Personalization Offered By Online Research Tools

Many tools allow users to customize their searches with filters, keywords, and preferences, making finding the most relevant information more accessible. Users can save search queries and set up alerts to notify them of new research, keeping them informed on specific topics of interest. 

7. The Eco-Friendly Nature of Online Research Tools

Accessing resources online minimizes the need for physical copies, contributing to environmental sustainability.

Research tools are the unsung heroes that help you tackle the overwhelming task of writing research papers and essays. The right tools will help you reduce the time it takes to collect information, organize your findings, and write your first draft. 

Research tools can create the structure for your project, save valuable time, Reduce stress, Help you get organized, and Improve the quality of your work. Ultimately, research tools can make your academic life a whole lot easier. As you prepare for your next research project, consider using Otio as your research tool of choice. 

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Zotero automatically senses research as you browse the web. Need an article from JSTOR or a preprint from arXiv.org? A news story from the New York Times or a book from a library? Zotero has you covered, everywhere.

Organize your way.

Zotero helps you organize your research any way you want. You can sort items into collections and tag them with keywords. Or create saved searches that automatically fill with relevant materials as you work.

Cite in style.

Zotero instantly creates references and bibliographies for any text editor, and directly inside Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs. With support for over 10,000 citation styles, you can format your work to match any style guide or publication.

Stay in sync.

Zotero can optionally synchronize your data across devices, keeping your files, notes, and bibliographic records seamlessly up to date. If you decide to sync, you can also always access your research from any web browser.

Collaborate freely.

Zotero lets you co-write a paper with a colleague, distribute course materials to students, or build a collaborative bibliography. You can share a Zotero library with as many people you like, at no cost.

Zotero is open source and developed by an independent, nonprofit organization that has no financial interest in your private information. With Zotero, you always stay in control of your own data.

Still not sure which program to use for your research? See why we think you should choose Zotero .

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9 Must-Have Online Tools for Researchers

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Research is already time-intensive work. And little tasks like formatting or citing eat up more of your time. Luckily, you can automate these tedious tasks to a large extent and focus more on actual research.

Here, we’ve rounded up all the online tools researchers should have in their arsenal—from Google Scholar to Citationsy.

1. Google Scholar

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Google Scholar is perhaps the most popular tool for finding scholarly literature on a plethora of topics. The search engine makes it simple for anyone to explore academic papers, theses, case law, books, etc.

On the search results page, you can view the author name, journal title, and total citations, which can help you gauge the credibility of the paper. Similarly, you can view related articles to explore the topic in detail.

Besides helping you find relevant information, Google Scholar lets you organize articles in your library. Create labels, sort by dates, and maintain a reading list to keep up with the latest research in your field.

You can also create your Google Scholar profile to show your work on Google Scholar and track citations to your work. Although it is an excellent tool, there are alternatives to Google Scholar in case it doesn’t work for you.

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Zotero describes itself as “your personal research assistant”, and we tend to agree. The tool cuts down on several monotonous tasks, like collecting research sources and adding citations.

If you have saved hundreds of information sources, finding the information you need can be difficult. Zotero solves this problem by letting you organize files into categories and assign keywords. With each saved item, you can add notes, attachments, and related material.

Zotero also simplifies the referencing by creating citations and bibliographies. Although the Zotero desktop client offers more features, the browser extension can save sources in the online library, letting you organize, tag, and cite them.

Best of all, it allows collaboration and sharing of documents. Zotero is a free, open-source project. However, you'll need to pay for storage if the 300 MB free plan doesn’t work for you.

Download: Zotero for Google Chrome | Microsoft Edge (Free, Paid)

3. ResearchGate

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Although most researchers are already familiar with ResearchGate, the platform deserves a mention here. It’s a networking platform for researchers, having over 20 million accounts.

You can follow other researchers, share your work, and ask questions from domain experts. Similarly, you can showcase your research and projects to a wider audience and receive feedback. Based on your profile, ResearchGate can also help you connect with potential job opportunities.

With over 135 million pages of scholarly literature, ResearchGate helps you explore publications on various topics and follow specific projects/questions. Creating an account here is free. But, you’ll need to have an institutional email address or go through additional checks to ensure you’re a researcher.

4. Mendeley

mendeley screenshot

Mendeley is much similar to Zotero, as it allows you to save papers, organize your library, and add citations in various styles.

What sets it apart though is that it has a user-friendly interface and a search engine for finding research papers. You can narrow the results down by year, journal title, author, and document type.

Directly from the search results page, you can add papers to your collection and view Open Access papers. Likewise, Mendeley Data lets you find research datasets.

Mendeley has a career section with thousands of listed vacancies—a great resource for finding technical jobs. It is available, both as a desktop application and a web-based tool (with browser extension). The free plan allows you to store 2 GB of data, after which you'll have to pay $4.99 per month or more, depending on your needs.

Download: Mendeley for Google Chrome | Firefox (Free, Paid)

5. SciSpace

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If you spend hours on getting the formatting correct, SciSpace is for you. This awesome web-based editor makes it simple to write and format your research papers, thanks to the huge collection of templates.

From a single editor screen, you can write, format, add citations, check plagiarism, and insert tables. You can collaborate with other researchers directly using SciSpace.

Besides publishing tools, SciSpace can help you discover scholarly literature and has an index of over 270 million papers. So you can search for papers by topic, authors, journals, and institutions.

SciSpace has a free plan, albeit with quite limited features. So if you’re serious, you can subscribe to SciSpace for $20 per month.

6. Turnitin

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Before submitting your research work, it’s necessary to run a plagiarism report and ensure the content is original.

Unless you've specific requirements about the software, Turnitin works great. It can detect plagiarism in academic work, thanks to its gigantic library of published papers.

The iThenticate service is specially designed for publishers. Using this tool, you can make adjustments to similarity criteria and view attached sources. For researchers who work in a group, it allows sharing folders.

Turnitin is a paid tool and only has an institutional license. So, you'll have to request quotes.

8. Hypothesis

Hypothesis is a Chrome extension that allows you to highlight documents and add notes. However, the main feature of this tool is the ability to collaborate seamlessly with your coworkers. You can add people to a group, share the document with them, and annotate documents.

Hypothesis is free to use. Although it looks like a simple extension, it’s one of the best tools to annotate web pages for research .

9. Citationsy

Citationsy website screenshot

If you hate adding citations, try using Citationsy. The intuitive reference manager can add citations and references in various styles automatically. You've to only select the journal and article in the Citations section.

Whether you want to cite a journal article, book, website, or podcast, Citationsy makes it easy. You can share the bibliographies with your fellow researchers.

Citationsy costs $9.99 per month and $4.99 per month for students. It has browser extensions as well as mobile applications.

Simplify Your Research Workflow

We get it. Research ain’t an easy task. But perhaps what is more frustrating are all the little tasks that add little value. But thanks to these tools, you boost your productivity, collaborate seamlessly with your co-workers, and focus on the actual research.

In case you’ve just stepped into the field of research, there are tools to help you polish your skills as well.

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The 11 best technology tools for researchers.

Research is a meticulous, painstaking process. But thanks to the help of technology ( https://www.bairesdev.com/insights/it-outsourcing-services/ ), the pain is lessened. No matter your field — whether it’s biology or computer science — there’s a tool out there to help you organize your notes, cite your sources, find important articles, connect with colleagues, and more.

Here’s a selection of 11 of the most useful ones.

This free tool wants to be “your personal research assistant.” It’s a free-to-use citation manager that helps you collect, organize, keep track of, cite, and share your research. You can also sync your research across devices, as Zotero offers integrations with browsers and Word processors.

The largest database of abstracts and citations of peer-reviewed research literature in the world, Scopus includes more than 36,000 titles. It covers subjects such as physical, life, social, and health sciences, with numerous publishers from around the world. It’s free to search for author profiles, as well as claim and update your own. Non-subscribers can also view journal rankings and metrics.

3. QuickCalcs

From GraphPad, QuickCalcs allows you to compute statistical analyses for a variety of data: categorical, continuous, statistical distributions, random numbers, and chemical and radiochemical. You’ll simply choose the category and type of calculator, enter the data, and view your results — all within your browser.

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique code consisting of letters, numbers, and special characters assigned to articles so that others can find them online. With Zenodo, you can receive a free DOI for your research, whether it’s a paper, article, essay, blog post, and nearly anything you can think of. Using it, you can share it with a thriving online community of researchers in all kinds of fields.

EndNote is an all-in-one tool for managing your references and citations. You can share your references with teams and keep track of edits and changes, comb resources to find the right ones for you, and create and format bibliographies. The software is packed with other features, including automatic link and reference updating to keep your citations current.

6. ReadCube

Here’s a web, mobile, and desktop platform that will help you manage your research across your devices. You can find, read, and annotate materials and preserve your notes and lists on your phone, laptop, or whatever device you’re using.

7. ResearchGate

Along with offering free access to research in your field, ResearchGate enables you to connect with others in the scientific community. You can share your work and collaborate with others in the industry, as well as get feedback.

You’re also able to see statistics on the impact of your work and the audience it’s garnering, along with receiving alerts when your connections publish new work. It’s completely free to register, too.

8. Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a free search engine that indexes academic research across a wide array of disciplines and formats, including journals, books, articles, dissertations, and more. It’s free to use for everyone, whether you’re a student or simply a curious person. Some articles are also free to read, while others require a login — although you’ll still generally be able to read the abstract either way.

9. F100Prime

Find news and recommendations for articles you should read about work in your field. Along with receiving the recommendations, you’ll get a quick summary of why you should read them. You can also follow local experts and get alerts about the articles they recommend, as well as save searches and get notified when works matching your interests and criteria become available.

Run by Cornell University, arXiv is a free, open-access repository of more than 1.5 million scholarly preprints that are accessible online. It covers fields including computer science, physics, economics, mathematics, statistics, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, and electrical engineering and systems science.

11. SJ Finder

Not only can you browse more than 30,000 accredited journals with existing research through SJ Finder, but you can also receive recommendations on journals that are best suited to publishing your own articles based on keywords in your paper’s title and abstract. The platform also helps you find a community, including labs, research partners, reviewers, and more.

Instant citations, connections with others in your field, access to peer-reviewed journal articles — what could be better? Research is grueling work, but with the help of these tools, you’ll streamline the process tenfold.

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Top 12 Must Have Online Tools for Researchers at All Stages

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Research is undoubtedly one of the most painstaking and thorough processes. Irrespective of your discipline, stage of work and career, research can be an arduous and time-consuming task. Right from browsing the library shelves and internet for literature, performing experiments, writing papers, to publishing papers, researchers are always running with the clock’s hands. No matter what your field of research, there’s an online tool out there to help you organize your notes, cite your sources, find important articles, connect with colleagues, and much more. However, with so many options available at a mouse click, it gets difficult to find a tool that delivers best results. As the search for reliable resources can be frustrating at times; we will discuss the features of 12 most recommended online tools for researchers at all stages in academia.

Table of Contents

What is the Need of Online Tools for Researchers?

Regardless of his/her research area, every researcher’s focus today is on managing various tasks, delivering productive results, utilizing time efficiently, and documenting research that is publication worthy. All these require a well-planned and organized system, which is achieved by monitoring the progress and collaboration of your projects, finding pertinent literature, writing your project proposals, reports, and articles, avoiding language errors, citing original sources, building networks, searching for journals for publication, etc. How do you plan on handling all this by yourself?—The first resort is surfing the internet to find a solution. Several online tools for researchers make this an easier task. However, with uncountable information available online, it can become a time-consuming nightmare to evaluate what works and what doesn’t.

Most Important Online Tools for Researchers

The 6 types of online tools for researchers that are essential at various stages of research are as follows:

A. Project Management Tools

Project management is a set of proven techniques for proposing, planning, implementing, managing, and evaluating projects, combined with the art of managing people. These tools are used to manage project progress, resource application, and collaboration processes. It involves creating a hierarchical task list, following up for task completion, setting deadlines, formulating plan of action, and assigning resources.

Two of the most used project management tools in academia are Trello and GanttPro.

Trello allows users to organize their ideas through the use of panels, cards, and lists. It’s an easy to access system with a simple drag and drop cards function. It allows users to list and schedule activities, establish completion times, and view progress percentages.  The user can create multiple boards for different subjects.  Additionally, Trello saves the boards in cloud as well as in user’s profile. It offers free and paid versions, depending on the user’s requirements.

2. GanttPRO

GanttPRO is an online Gantt chart program for project management that allows intuitive creation of schedules. It is a paid software which also offers free trial version.  GanttPRO allows sub-division of major tasks into minor tasks and offers cost calculation per task. While using a Gantt chart, you can immediately see all the information you need on your chart, including your team’s tasks, their sequences, deadlines, and priorities. GanttPRO is hosted in the cloud, which makes is easily accessible for every team member using any web browser.

B. Grammar Checker Tools

Grammar checker tools are used to detect grammatical, spelling, punctuation, sentence formation errors, etc.  Its purpose is to enhance the language of a paper in question. Given the need of the hour, the internet pool is overflowing with several grammar checker tools that suggest fixes and explain the nature of the suggested fixes. For knowledge to be disseminated unambiguously, it is essential that the literature is written correctly. Especially for non-native researchers, the use of grammar checker tools is a must.

Two most recommended grammar checker tools for researchers are Trinka AI and Grammarly.

1. Trinka AI

Trinka AI is the world’s first grammar and language improvement tool designed specifically for academic and technical writing. It is unique as it not only checks grammar, punctuation, and spelling, but also provides explanations for correcting errors. It offers free version that includes access to all its features. The paid version offers uninterrupted usage and higher monthly limits along with access to the add-in for MS Word. It allows you to choose between the US and the UK style to make it easily accessible for researchers all over the world.

Its custom-built features such as maintaining academic tone, providing unbiased language, concept clarity, sentence structure, and alternative word choice makes it better than most grammar checker tools. It also offers subject-specific corrections, select style guides preferences, and 20+ publication readiness checks . It provides detailed explanations as to why a correction is suggested. Furthermore, it helps researchers in reducing word count by suggesting alternatives without changing the context.

2. Grammarly

Grammarly is a popular browser application or extension developed to check grammar, punctuation , context, sentence structure, and readability. It is a real-time plagiarism detector on various platforms, including MS Word, WordPress, Facebook, etc. It is available in free and paid version. The free version offers basic spelling and grammar checks , as well as some suggestions. While the paid version offers the basic revisions and vocabulary improvement suggestions; additionally, it provides citation suggestions and can detect plagiarism.

C. Reference Management Tools

Reference management tools help in managing the literature used for research development, thus offering an alternative to a time-consuming task for researchers. These tools allow you to organize articles and their citations, share them with other researchers, detect duplicate entries, format the list of references, search and replace any reference, etc.  Furthermore, it allows researchers to correctly link and cite the works referenced in their articles.

Among many reference management tools available online, Mendeley and EndNote are two of the most widely used.

1. Mendeley

Mendeley is a freely available reference management tool to streamline your referral management workflow. It allows you to store, organize, and search all your references in just one library and generate citations. It includes citation options using various writing style guides needed as per your target journal. The program is compatible with Word (including Mac), LibreOffice, and OpenOffice. It can also be used with LaTex exporting BibTex. Furthermore, its version is also available for Android. Its feature of highlighting and annotating PDFs helps in better organization of multiple documents in one place.

EndNote is a paid reference management application, which allows researchers to insert citations into the text while simultaneously creating a bibliography with the “Cite While You Write” feature in MS Word. Additionally, it aligns and formats the article as per the requirements of the journal of interest using “Manuscript Matcher”. Furthermore, it organizes references automatically and enables sharing of work amongst remote computers.

D. Plagiarism Checkers

The academic world is riddled with plagiarism and perhaps due to the dizzying pace of publications, researchers can unknowingly fall prey to the derisive act of plagiarism.  To avoid getting your manuscript rejected and consequently affecting your image as a researcher, it is wise to run your manuscript through a plagiarism checker tool. These tools can not only help you in checking plagiarized content , but also help in identifying potential collaborations with researchers that belong to the same field.

To detect plagiarism, researchers can opt for plagiarism checker tools such as Enago’s Plagiarism Checker and Duplichecker.

1. Enago’s Plagiarism Checker

Enago’s plagiarism checker is a unique tool for quick, comprehensive, and dependable plagiarism checking, especially for research. It helps you assess the originality of a manuscript using advanced plagiarism software and provides a report highlighting areas in your text if the program recognizes existing material in it. It is easy to access with one click upload button. Furthermore, it includes an AI-based grammar check feature that checks your document for grammar errors typical to academic writing, and provides a tracked changes file that you can download and review.

In addition, its power editing mode enhances your document by correcting sentence structure, word choice, and subject-specific phrasing. Its extensive scholarly database of over 91+ billion web pages and 82+ million published articles ensures thorough plagiarism check as compared to other checkers. The tool is cost-effective with most reliable results. More importantly, a detailed interactive color-coded and plagiarism percentage report can be reviewed online and also be downloaded in PDF format if needed.

2. Duplichecker

Duplichecker offers a free version for texts of up to 1000 words and is available in paid versions for word count above 1000. It provides plagiarism percentage and highlights similar content to the list of sources. However, it does not provide detailed report. It has a limited database access as it compares your document only to Internet sources and online books. Lastly, the plagiarism report is easy to read and is downloadable in PDF and MS Word format.

E. Journal Finder

One of the common rejection factors of research journals is that the subject of the research is not within those contemplated by the journal. The journal search engines help researchers to choose the best suitable journal for publishing their research. These tools are very useful to avoid getting involved in a manuscript submission process that would be wrong from the beginning.

The two effective and reliable journal finder tools are Enago Open Access Journal Finder (Enago OAJF) and Elsevier Journal Finder (Elsevier JF).

1. Enago’s Open Access Journal Finder

Enago’s OAJF is a freely available tool that protects you from falling prey to predatory publishers. It solves issues such as journal legitimacy and reports article processing fees through a journal index validated and issued by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). It allows you to find pre-screened and quality journals in the public domain. Enago’s exclusive search algorithm allows you to compile a concise list of journals related to your research work.

2. Elsevier Journal Finder

Elsevier Journal Finder allows you to enter the title and abstract of your article to easily find journals that are most likely suitable for your publication. It uses intelligent search technology and vocabularies specific to the corresponding research field to match your article to scientific journals.

F. Social Networking for Academics

Research advances when shared; hence, the connection and exchange of ideas between researchers is essential. To socialize, work networks are a great help that encourages collaborative effort at a distance. This makes it possible to publicize the profile of a researcher to the scientific community, as well as promote their research and establish links with other work teams across the globe.

Two most commonly used academic networks include Academia.edu and ResearchGate.

1. Academia.edu

Academia.edu is a freely accessible platform for sharing research documents and connecting with academics across the globe. As of now, over 22 million articles and about 31 million academics, professionals, researchers are active on the platform. Academia.edu’s algorithms generate about 20 million article recommendations per day. It is also possible to exchange knowledge in effective formats of video, short content, dataset, etc. You can receive notifications when you are cited and referenced, acknowledged as a co-author, and expressed gratitude for your co-operation.

2. ResearchGate

ResearchGate is also a freely available networking platform to connect scientists and make research available to everyone. Currently, there are over 20 million researchers from more than 190 countries connecting through ResearchGate to collaborate and share their work. It also allows interactive conversations with researchers on the platform.

Do you use any of the above mentioned online tools? Do you think that these online tools for researchers can significantly ease your effort? Which are some other tools you know of that you find useful for academic work? Let us know in the comments section below! You can also visit our  Q&A forum  for frequently asked questions related to different aspects of research writing and publishing answered by our team that comprises subject-matter experts, eminent researchers, and publication experts.

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Maximize your research potential: Top 20 research tools you need to know

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In today’s digital age, with a plethora of tools available at our fingertips, researchers can now collect and analyze data with greater ease and efficiency. These research tools not only save time but also provide more accurate and reliable results. In this blog post, we will explore some of the essential research tools that every researcher should have in their toolkit.

From data collection to data analysis and presentation, this blog will cover it all. So, if you’re a researcher looking to streamline your work and improve your results, keep reading to discover the must-have tools for research success.

Revolutionize your research: The top 20 must-have research tools

Research requires various tools to collect, analyze and disseminate information effectively. Some essential research tools include search engines like Google Scholar, JSTOR, and PubMed, reference management software like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote, statistical analysis tools like SPSS, R, and Stata, writing tools like Microsoft Word and Grammarly, and data visualization tools like Tableau and Excel.  

Essential Research Tools for Researchers

1. Google Scholar –  Google Scholar is a search engine for scholarly literature, including articles, theses, books, and conference papers.

2. JSTOR –  JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.

3.PubMed – PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics.  

4. Web of Science : Web of Science is a citation index that allows you to search for articles, conference proceedings, and books across various scientific disciplines.  

5. Scopus – Scopus citation database that covers scientific, technical, medical, and social sciences literature.  

6. Zotero: Zotero is a free, open-source citation management tool that helps you organize your research sources, create bibliographies, and collaborate with others.

7. Mendeley – Mendeley is a reference management software that allows you to organize and share your research papers and collaborate with others.

8. EndNote – EndNoted is a  software tool for managing bibliographies, citations, and references on the Windows and macOS operating systems.  

9. RefWorks – RefWorks is a  web-based reference management tool that allows you to create and organize a personal database of references and generate citations and bibliographies.

10. Evernote –   Evernote is a digital notebook that allows you to capture and organize your research notes, web clippings, and documents.

11. SPSS – SPSS is a statistical software package used for data analysis, data mining, and forecasting.

12. R – R is a free, open-source software environment for statistical computing and graphics.

13. Stata – Stata is a  statistical software package that provides a suite of applications for data management and statistical analysis.

Other helpful tools for collaboration and organization include NVivo, Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. With these tools, researchers can effectively find relevant literature, manage references, analyze data, write research papers, create visual representations of data, and collaborate with peers.  

14. Excel –   Excel is spreadsheet software used for organizing, analyzing, and presenting data.

15. Tableau – Tableau is a data visualization software that allows you to create interactive visualizations and dashboards.

16. NVivo – Nviva is a software tool for qualitative research and data analysis.

17. Slack – Slack is a messaging platform for team communication and collaboration.

18. Zoom –   Zoom is a video conferencing software that allows you to conduct virtual meetings and webinars.

19. Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Teams is a collaboration platform that allows you to chat, share files, and collaborate with your team.

20. Qualtrics – Qualtrics is an online survey platform that allows researchers to design and distribute surveys, collect and analyze data, and generate reports.

Maximizing accuracy and efficiency with research tools

Research is a vital aspect of any academic discipline, and it is critical to have access to appropriate research tools to facilitate the research process. Researchers require access to various research tools and software to conduct research, analyze data, and report research findings. Some standard research tools researchers use include search engines, reference management software, statistical analysis tools, writing tools, and data visualization tools.

Specialized research tools are also available for researchers in specific fields, such as GIS software for geographers and geneticist gene sequence analysis tools. These tools help researchers organize data, collaborate with peers, and effectively present research findings.

It is crucial for researchers to choose the right tools for their research project, as these tools can significantly impact the accuracy and reliability of research findings.

Summing it up, researchers today have access to an array of essential research tools that can help simplify the research process. From data collection to analysis and presentation, these tools make research more accessible, efficient, and accurate. By leveraging these tools, researchers can improve their work and produce more high-quality research.

Written by Prasad D Wilagama

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Top 16 digital tools that every researcher should know about

Top 16 Digital Tools That Every Researcher Should Know About

Using digital tools for researchers effectively can be the difference between an average and an excellent piece of research. But today, with the long list of research tools available online, it is only natural for busy researchers to be baffled when it comes to making the right choice for specific needs. With considerations of time, cost, effectiveness and quality, there is a lot to check before you make the choice. We don’t want you to spend hours just looking for the best tools for researchers, so we’ve rounded up some of the most effective digital tools for researchers to make your life simpler.

In this comprehensive article, we have compiled a list of 16 useful online tools for researchers at various stages of the research journey. These tools will streamline your research process, help you stay organized, and provide you with easy access to the information you need. From reference management software to digital libraries, these cutting-edge tools cater to the needs of both experienced and novice researchers alike. Whether you’re working on a major research project or just starting out, this blog will help you get ahead of the curve and make your research journey a tad (we aren’t making big promises) bit easier.

Table of Contents

Why are digital tools for researchers important

Before any digital tools for researchers were introduced, academics had to rely on old-school manual methods that were typically time-consuming, labor-intensive, and also limited in scope. For instance, you had to subscribe to journals or physically visit libraries and spend hours searching and sifting through tomes before finding the most relevant information. And once that was done, the process of organizing, storing, and referencing data was another challenge you had to overcome.

In contrast, online tools for researchers offer a wealth of information and resources at your fingertips today. With the option to search and access vast amounts of knowledge with a few clicks, researchers are able to boost their efficiency and effectiveness at work.

And it’s not just limited to online tools for researchers that allow you to easily store, organize, and manage information, there are a number of tools that can help you hone your writing, check for plagiarism, find the right journal, collaborate with other researchers, and share your knowledge, ideas, and resources. The rapid development of digital tools for researchers have revolutionized the way researchers work, making way for faster innovation and more groundbreaking research.

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Types of tools for researchers

There are various types of online tools for researchers to choose from. These tools can be classified into various categories such as planning and management of research projects, literature search, data collection and analysis, reference management, editing and paraphrasing, and collaboration and communication. These digital tools for researchers have revolutionized the way academics work, adding to their time, productivity and effectiveness; this in turn makes research more accessible, efficient, and collaborative. Let’s take a look at some top tools for researchers across these key stages in the researcher journey.

Reference Management Tools

Reference management tools are great time saving tools for researchers. Not only do they allow you to create a library of relevant articles, they help you format your references, detect duplicate entries and replace incomplete references, and even share articles with other researchers. Furthermore, they are also extremely useful tools for researchers when it comes to correctly linking sources and citing referenced articles.

Among the top reference management tools for researchers, Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote are the most widely used.

Zotero has quickly become one of the must-have tools for researchers to capture and preserve high-quality publication data from various sources, including journal articles, websites, newspapers, and PDFs. Its integration with popular Word processors such as Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs allows you to efficiently manage citations and bibliographies as you write. The software’s built-in PDF reader enables you to identify and extract cited quotations and comments, which can be directly saved as notes. What sets Zotero apart is its advanced search feature, which enables users to perform complex searches, such as locating articles added in the last month by mentioning a specific keyword and creating auto-updating collections. Zotero can also identify retracted papers and sends out an alert when you attempt to cite a retracted paper.

Zotero follows the freemium model, where one can get 300 MB in the free version with additional storage available for a fee starting at $20/year .

An offering by Elsevier, Mendeley is among the best reference management tools for researchers that combines an intuitive, user-friendly interface with powerful organizational features. With Mendeley, you can store and manage sources, take notes, collaborate with others, and discover new research in your field. Mendeley’s PDF viewer has an excellent, easy-to-use, built-in capability with the option of editing a document simultaneously with other Mendeley users. ‘Mendeley Notebook’, a feature of Mendeley, helps you collate all your highlights and notes from multiple PDFs. ‘Mendeley Cite’, another of its features, is a citation plugin for Microsoft Word that lets you insert references and bibliographies into your document.

Mendeley is a free citation and paper management tool with up to 2 GB of cloud storage. It has a desktop application, mobile app, and Chrome browser extension, making it a top choice among tools for researchers.

Mendeley offers both a free and a premium version, where users get 2 GB in the free version and additional storage space with pricing starting at $55/year .

Endnote is one of the paid reference management tools for researchers. It allows researchers to insert citations into the text, and simultaneously creates a bibliography with its “Cite While You Write” feature in Microsoft Word. Additionally, one can align and format the article as per the target journal requirements using its “Manuscript Matcher” feature. You can also conduct large-scale literature reviews with Endnote’s powerful analysis tools. Endnote is available in the cloud and accessible anywhere, providing researchers with the flexibility to work from any location.

Endnote offers a range of pricing options, starting at $124.95/year . It is one of the must-have tools for researchers keen on saving time and energy!

Top 16 digital tools that every researcher should know about

Academic Writing Tools

If you are not taking advantage of academic writing tools for researchers, well, you’re missing out on a lot. The range of things academic writing tools can do for you is astonishing – language editing, abstract writing, plagiarism checking and so much more! While there are a number of online tools for reseachers that can help improve your academic writing, here are our top choices in this category that you should know about.

iThenticate

iThenticate by Turnitin is an online plagiarism checker designed specifically for researchers and academics to review their manuscripts prior to journal submission and publication. iThenticate is one of the most popular tools for researchers looking to check their writing for originality and ensure they have cited all sources appropriately.

With its advanced plagiarism detection technology, iThenticate compares a submission to an extensive database of web pages and scholarly content before producing a similarity score and report. Researchers can use this report to eliminate any inadvertent instances of plagiarism and other blunders in their research papers.

The price for an iThenticate license starts at $100 for a manuscript and is valid for multiple plagiarism checks for this single document over a year. If you need to check more than one manuscript, you can opt for an annual license at a higher price.

One of the well-known tools for researchers, Scholarcy is an innovative AI engine that helps you analyze different sections of an article, filter out the noise, and deliver a precise structured summary of the research. Scholarcy doesn’t just condense papers into referenced lay summaries, it highlights key claims and statistics mentioned in the research paper that are most useful to your work.

It also extracts all the tables and figures and links to their cited location in the text, saving researchers hours of time searching for the most relevant papers. The smart AI engine is also a great tool for researchers looking to generate lay summaries that can help promote their research to a broader audience

You can use the free Scholarcy browser extension on Chrome or Edge to create summary flashcards online or build your own personal interactive library with a subscription of $7.99 per month.

Scrivener is among the underrated tools for researchers that can help make researchers’ lives simpler if used effectively. It has a user-friendly interface that allows researchers to easily organize their research notes, documents, and outlines. Scrivener gives you three ways to organize your projects: the Binder – which lets you manage folders and text, the Outliner – which helps you outline your research before you write it, and the Corkboard – to help you plan and organize your ongoing tasks.

Scrivener also has a mobile app that syncs with your devices ensuring everything is in one place. This makes it a great option for those who want to walk around and research ideas or take notes on your phone.

Scrivener offers a free trial period, with lifetime licenses available from $63.56 for MacOS and Windows.

Paperpal is as multifaceted as a Swiss Knife and stands tall among online academic writing tools for researchers. With in-depth language and grammar checks, instant and precise academic translations, relevant subject-specific writing recommendations, and critical technical checks, its suite of tools has you covered from the first draft itself. Use the Paperpal for Word plug-in and improve your language as you write in Microsoft Word, including real-time suggestions on vocabulary and phrasing.

Turn to Paperpal for Web to enhance your content with instant checks to ensure error-free language and grammar, clarity, and readability. Choose Paperpal for Manuscript if you have a manuscript ready for submission; its comprehensive language and technical checks ensure your work meets journal guidelines by flagging problem areas that could lead to desk rejection.

The best part about Paperpal, also something that makes it different from other more generic grammar editing tools, is that it is tailored for researchers and academic writing. You can get up to 500 edits for free on Paperpal for Word and Web or enjoy unlimited support at just $99 per year. Paperpal for Manuscript gives you an edited version of your article with suggestions in track changes for just $29.

Top 16 digital tools that every researcher should know about

Project Management Tools

There are several online tools for researchers to manage and organize their work, including keeping track of task completion, setting deadlines, and just having everything in one place. Four tools for researchers that must be there in your productivity kit are Trello, GanttPRO, Evernote, and My Research Projects.

You can use Trello to visually organize your ideas on its boards with the help of interactive cards. These cards can be used in multiple ways – you can create lists, assign tasks, message and tag those you are collaborating with, link files, add due dates–all on the virtual “back” of the card. You can also drag cards between lists, copy cards that you use often (or rather, use the cards as templates), and send cards to other boards. Basically, you can see your entire research process on a single Trello board.

This is a useful tool for researchers involved in large collaborative projects that span the globe. Trello has a free version that offers limited features with pricing models starting at $5 a month.

GanttPRO is another tool for researchers that helps you organize your thoughts better. A Gantt chart timeline on GanttPRO is the best way to visualize tasks, know their start and end dates, and track your progress along the way. The vertical and horizontal axes in a Gantt Chart present a visual summary of how various aspects of your research project are progressing, which allows you to address specific tasks that need extra or immediate attention.

GanttPRO is hosted in the cloud, which makes is easily accessible. It offers users a free trial with the option to choose from plans starting at $7.99 per month.

A productive way to jot down notes and ideas and sort through your research materials, Evernote is one of the most popular online tools for researchers. With Evernote, you can organize your research by a simple notebook structure to keep similar notes together or creating tags and folders for specific purposes.

You can save webpages, articles, or screenshots to your Evernote notebook and use the handy multimedia feature to enhance these by adding new text, images, documents, and even audio messages captured with its inbuilt recorder. Evernote also helps you sync your notes across devices so you can manage your notes across multiple platforms.

The basic version of Evernote lets you create and save notes but has limitations on storage space. You can buy more storage by opting for a paid subscription plan, which is currently available from $5.83 a month at ongoing discounted prices.

My Research Projects

My Research Projects by Researcher.Life is designed for researchers and helps you plan, manage, and communicate your work effectively. It promises end-to-end support in transforming your research into a well-written manuscript with suggestions on suitable journals for your research and guidance on the most relevant literature to cite. You can use the comprehensive submission readiness check to ensure your manuscript meets journal guidelines, with checks for language quality, structural completeness, clarity and consistency, and mandatory declarations. You can also generate detailed article summaries to help you convey your research findings more effectively.

My Research Projects lets you check one manuscript and get a detailed report for free by subscribing to Researcher.Life. You can unlock premium checks for multiple manuscripts by upgrading to the Prime Pack for $99 a year.

Academic Search Engines

As researchers you are expected to keep up with the latest developments in your own and related research fields. Yet, with the exponential growth in research output, this is far from easy. This is what makes academic search engines invaluable to academics searching for relevant scientific information. They use keywords to help researchers find, access and read about the latest most relevant research, including peer-reviewed articles, genuine information, author home pages, and university websites.

Google Scholar, R Discovery, and Scopus are our top tools for researchers in this category.

R Discovery

R Discovery is a strong contender when it comes to the best literature search and reading tools for researchers. An AI-powered app for researchers, R Discovery boasts of an expanding library of research content that includes over 100 million research papers across 9.5 million topics and more than 32,000 journals worldwide. It uses your topics of interest to create a personalized reading feed, with suggestions on top reads, smart summaries, and other features to help you discover the right research in minutes.

This includes open access articles, preprints, and pay-walled content (accessible through institutional credentials) across all major subject areas, including biology, medicine, philosophy, political science, environmental science, social sciences, and psychology. The best part is that this app for researchers continually upgrades its features and eliminated predatory journals to ensure you have access to reliable research that works for you.

R Discovery is one of the many tools for researchers developed by Researcher.Life and is completely free to install and use. It is available on both mobile and web, allowing for streamlined reading on your preferred device.

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Google Scholar

If you’re an academic, you probably have used Google Scholar sometime in your research journey. It is one of the most used tools for researchers and acts as an online search engine for academics looking for scholarly literature and relevant sources to cite. It is tailored for academics, which means you can use different keywords to look up various research articles, theses, books, and conference papers to support your research study.

Researchers can also search for authors, journals, and other titles and can even create an account to save their search results. The one drawback here though is that you will need to keep searching until you find related research, and even then you will still need to browse through these individually to find the most relevant content for your research topic.

Another popular academic search tool for researchers is Scopus, an offering by Elsevier that is very similar to Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic. The largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed research with over 1.7 billion cited references, Scopus houses content indexed from more than 25,000 active titles and 7,000 publishers, all carefully vetted and selected by an independent review board.

With Scopus, you can look for articles, journals, and any other sources that will help you write better research. You can also refine your literature search by filtering for author name or affiliation among others. Scopus also has analytical tools to help you visualize and compare research data – that is, you can view author, journal, and article impact metrics through the detailed research output and trends reports that Scopus provides.

Scopus works as an API that can be integrated into an institution’s repository or research information management systems. While it is free to use for non-subscribers, there is limited access to content with additional costs to access paywalled articles on this platform.

Top 16 digital tools that every researcher should know about

Journal Selection Tools

Given the enormous number of scholarly journals around and new ones coming up every year, it can be hard to select the best journal for your research paper. Despite its challenges, the process of finding the perfect journal, which is respected, relevant, and reliable, is one of the most critical tasks to get right for researchers. This is why good online journal finders are invaluable tools for researchers.

Elsevier’s Journal Finder tool and the Global Journal Database (GJD) are two pretty effective journal selection tools for researchers.

Journal Finder

The Journal Finder tool by Elsevier, one of the largest publishers of peer-reviewed journals across disciplines, is a great solution for authors looking to shortlist journals for their work. Just use relevant keywords, titles, or your research paper abstract to get a list of recommended Elsevier journals that publish research similar to yours.

Its intelligent machine learning algorithm uses terms specific to the corresponding research field to generate the best matches for your article. You can choose from the top of the list or sort this further using filters based on your preferences. The Journal Finder also lists journals with open-access publishing options and those that cover multidisciplinary research fields.

Elsevier can be used for free to search for journals related to your research.

Global Journal Database

The Global Journal Database, developed by Researcher.Life, comprises of more than 43,000 journals indexed in reputed public directories like Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Scopus, and Web of Science. Researchers can search for relevant journals using the title or ISSN, similar topics, research paper abstracts, and even manuscripts; the advanced AI engine will use this to generate the best journals for you.

Each journal recommendation comes with a detailed journal report that has key information about shortlisted journals, including publisher details, journal metrics, author instructions, the editorial review process, and even a list of the latest articles published. With the Global Journal Database, you can see where your preferred journal is indexed and browse its publishing history to better understand its scope. The broad journal coverage, multiple search modes, and detailed journal reports make this an exceptional tool for researchers, simplifying and speeding up the often-daunting journal selection process.

The Global Journal Database is available free with a Researcher.Life Essentials Pack subscription.

Top 16 digital tools that every researcher should know about

Wrapping Up

Researchers everywhere are on a quest to uncover new insights and come up with ground-breaking research. Choosing the right digital tools for researcher and using these effectively can make your journey from brainstorming to breakthroughs a smoother, easier, and faster one.

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If you’re looking for a seamless transition between various tools, choose Researcher.Life, which brings together innovative solutions to accelerate and optimize each stage of your research journey. Turn to Paperpal the next time you’re perplexed by language nuances, swipe through R Discovery’s reading recommendations to keep up with the latest developments, manage your research effectively with My Research Projects, or find the right journal for your paper with the Global Journal Database. Experience Researcher.Life and its many bespoke tools for researchers.

Editage All Access is a subscription-based platform that unifies the best AI tools and services designed to speed up, simplify, and streamline every step of a researcher’s journey. The Editage All Access Pack is a one-of-a-kind subscription that unlocks full access to an AI writing assistant, literature recommender, journal finder, scientific illustration tool, and exclusive discounts on professional publication services from Editage.  

Based on 22+ years of experience in academia, Editage All Access empowers researchers to put their best research forward and move closer to success. Explore our top AI Tools pack, AI Tools + Publication Services pack, or Build Your Own Plan. Find everything a researcher needs to succeed, all in one place –  Get All Access now starting at just $14 a month !    

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10 free online tools for scientific research

10 Free Online Tools For Scientific Research

 X min read 

As the landscape of scientific research evolves, the shift towards online tools has introduced a sea of resources that can profoundly impact the productivity and effectiveness of scientific endeavors.

The key is to identify tools that enhance your research without complicating your process.

While diving into this ocean of resources, there are several important things to look for:

  • Ease of Use: Opt for tools with intuitive interfaces.
  • Artificial Intelligence: Look for AI integration to automate and enhance research tasks.
  • Data Security: Ensure compliance with the latest data security and privacy standards.
  • Software Integration: Favor tools that offer seamless integration with existing systems.
  • Accuracy: Verify that the tools provide precise and correct information.
  • Free Access: Confirm that there’s a genuinely free offer, not just a trial period that requires future payment.

With these criteria in mind, let’s explore ten free online tools that could become indispensable for your scientific research.

1. Semantic Scholar

Powered by AI, Semantic Scholar is a free, nonprofit research tool that stands out for its smart search capabilities.

It sifts through millions of publications to bring you the most relevant and impactful studies, cutting down the time you’d typically spend on literature review.

With a focus on AI, Semantic Scholar offers personalized recommendations, citation summaries, and key phrase extractions that make keeping up with your field’s latest a breeze.

Visit Semantic Scholar

2. Connected Papers

Connected Papers offers a unique visual take on research, building an interactive graph that shows the connections between scientific papers.

It’s like having a bird’s-eye view of the research landscape, allowing you to trace the development of ideas and how they relate to one another. This can uncover pivotal papers that might otherwise slip through the cracks.

Visit Connected Papers

3. Scholarcy

Scholarcy is your AI-powered reading companion, making sense of complex academic papers by breaking them down into digestible summaries.

Imagine having the ability to absorb the core themes and conclusions of a dense, 30-page document in a matter of minutes. Scholarcy makes this a reality, highlighting the methodology, results, and discussions that are central to understanding the paper’s contribution to the field.

This tool is perfect for researchers who are pressed for time but need to stay ahead of the curve. With Scholarcy, you can easily grasp the essence of lengthy publications and build a knowledge base faster than ever.

Visit Scholarcy

4. Consensus

Imagine if you could quickly gauge the consensus of the scientific community on a particular topic. That’s exactly what Consensus aims to do.

Powered by the sophisticated GPT-4 model, Consensus operates as a dynamic search engine that delivers not just search results but a synthesized understanding of where the scientific agreement lies on complex subjects.

With its AI-driven analysis, it reviews multiple studies and delivers a consensus view, helping to inform your research stance.

It’s like a digital synthesis of expert opinions at your fingertips.

Visit Consensus

5. Research Rabbit

Research Rabbit is more than just a tool; it’s your research exploration partner. It helps you discover and organize literature in a personalized research landscape.

The magic of Research Rabbit lies in its ability to learn and adapt to your research behavior, suggesting not just content but also potential pathways your research could take.

It’s much like having a personal librarian who not only knows your research interests but also suggests connections you might not have considered, leading to innovative ideas and directions.

Visit Research Rabbit

6. Audemic.io

Audemic.io stands out in the digital research tools space by transforming the way we consume scientific literature. It leverages the power of audio to make research papers accessible in a format that’s perfect for the multitasking researcher.

Whether you’re commuting or running an experiment, Audemic.io ensures that you can keep up with the latest publications by listening, making the continuous learning process a seamless part of your daily routine.

Visit Audemic.io

Zotero revolutionizes the way researchers manage their references.

Zotero is a haven for anyone looking to organize their sources, offering an intuitive platform for collecting, organizing, and citing research materials. With it, you can easily create bibliographies and in-text citations in a variety of citation styles, which are essential for manuscript preparation.

Zotero holds the distinction of being the oldest tool on this list. Having stood the test of time since its inception in 2006, it proves that a tool does not require all the bells and whistles, or even AI technology, to remain relevant and useful in the fast-paced world of academic research.

Its continued popularity underscores the fact that reliability, ease of use, and a user-focused approach never go out of style.

Visit Zotero

8. Protocols.io

Protocols.io is an indispensable tool for researchers who understand that the devil is often in the details—particularly when it comes to experimental protocols. This platform allows for the creation, sharing, and collaborative refinement of protocols.

Not only does it provide a dynamic space for protocol management, but it also seamlessly integrates with SciNote —a comprehensive electronic lab notebook—allowing for an efficient transition from planning to execution.

Visit Protocols.io

9. Scite.ai

Scite.ai takes a novel approach to assessing the reliability of scientific papers.

Using a sophisticated AI, it analyzes citation contexts to provide “Smart Citations,” allowing researchers to see how a paper has been cited, and if its findings have been supported or contradicted.

This insight is crucial in gauging the impact and reliability of research findings , offering a new dimension to the citation analysis that goes beyond mere numbers.

Visit Scite.ai

10. SciNote ELN

Managing research data effectively is critical, and SciNote ELN is the online tool designed for this task.

It’s an electronic lab notebook that helps you keep your research data organized and secure. With features that support project management, team collaboration, and inventory tracking, SciNote is not just a digital notebook—it’s a central hub for managing all aspects of your research projects.

It’s designed to bring order to the complexity of research data, ensuring that every finding and experiment is documented comprehensively.

Visit SciNote ELN

Final Thoughts

In the current research landscape, these tools are more than conveniences; they’re necessities for staying current, connected, and creative in your work.

Whether you’re looking to manage data, streamline processes, or consume literature in innovative ways, the digital solutions available can significantly enhance the efficiency and impact of your research.

Each of these tools offers a unique angle on the research process, tailored to save time, foster collaboration, and enhance discovery.

By incorporating these into your workflow, you embrace a future where technology and science go hand in hand, creating a symbiosis that propels both forward.

Whether through AI-powered summaries or visual mapping of the literature, these tools embody the innovative spirit of the scientific community. By leveraging these resources, researchers can stand on the shoulders of the digital giants to reach new heights in their academic and professional pursuits.

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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 .

Qualitative to broader populations. .
Quantitative .

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.

Primary . methods.
Secondary

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.

Descriptive . .
Experimental

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Research methods for collecting data
Research method Primary or secondary? Qualitative or quantitative? When to use
Primary Quantitative To test cause-and-effect relationships.
Primary Quantitative To understand general characteristics of a population.
Interview/focus group Primary Qualitative To gain more in-depth understanding of a topic.
Observation Primary Either To understand how something occurs in its natural setting.
Secondary Either To situate your research in an existing body of work, or to evaluate trends within a research topic.
Either Either To gain an in-depth understanding of a specific group or context, or when you don’t have the resources for a large study.

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.

Research methods for analyzing data
Research method Qualitative or quantitative? When to use
Quantitative To analyze data collected in a statistically valid manner (e.g. from experiments, surveys, and observations).
Meta-analysis Quantitative To statistically analyze the results of a large collection of studies.

Can only be applied to studies that collected data in a statistically valid manner.

Qualitative To analyze data collected from interviews, , or textual sources.

To understand general themes in the data and how they are communicated.

Either To analyze large volumes of textual or visual data collected from surveys, literature reviews, or other sources.

Can be quantitative (i.e. frequencies of words) or qualitative (i.e. meanings of words).

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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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Bit Blog

Top 13 Tools for Researchers in 2024!

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Gone are the days of going to the library, studying numerous books, taking notes on paper, and doing research. Thanks to technology, we no longer have to do this tedious routine to do research. However, research is still a meticulous, painstaking process.

This is why we decided to uncover some of the best software tools for researchers that are going to help you conduct and maintain your research with ease. Read on…

List of Top 13 Best Tools for Researchers for better results:

Research today is dynamic. We often use the internet to browse websites, watch videos, study analytics, and conduct our research by exploring different types of digital content, making technology a major stakeholder in making our research success .

While the internet has made it easy for us to access worldly information with the click of a button (or mouse!), it has created a whole new set of problems.

Sorting through a seemingly infinite number of websites, verifying content, and curating only the best stuff can take a lot of time and effort. This is why we have brought you 13 essential research tools every researcher should use while working on the internet.

1. Bit.ai  

Bit.ai: Documentation tool for researchers

Online research means going through numerous websites, articles, blogs, images, videos, infographics, and more to find what you are looking for.

For our dynamic, interactive, and media-rich research, we need a tool that incorporates all facets of modern-day research under one roof. Simple text editors of the past just won’t cut it anymore! This is where Bit comes in.

Bit allows researchers and teams to collaborate, share, track, and manage all knowledge and research in one place.

It’s the perfect research tool to share multi-dimensional research with your peers and not just plain, boring text and slides.

Add articles, PDFs, videos, white papers, ebooks, audio samples- basically anything you can think of – and share it with your peers easily!

Other notable features of Bit include:

  • An easy-to-use, minimal editor that supports Markdown.
  • Collaborative, real-time editing, and communication with peers.
  • Add any type of digital content (images, videos, etc) to your Bit document.
  • A content library to save all your media files for quick access.
  • Smart search, allows anyone to search and find any files, images, documents, links, etc quickly.

All-in-all, Bit is a must-have writing tool for researchers and authors!

Bit.ai Home Page CTA

Key Features of Bit: 

  • Workspaces to store different research content easily
  • Content library to store media assets
  • Real-time collaboration with fellow researchers
  • Free with limited functionality
  • Paid plans start from Pro ($8/month), Business ($15/month), Enterprise (contact sales)

Read more:  How Bit.ai Can Help You Manage Your Academic Research?

2. elink.io

elink.io: Tool for researchers

Research often involves going through hundreds of links and articles and compiling them in one safe space for future reference or publishing them for your audience.

This is why many researchers use bookmarking and curation tools like elink to quickly save their links under one roof and share them with their peers.

elink makes it easy for researchers to save content from around the web. They can save article links, videos, cloud files, social media posts, and much more!

Researchers have the option of saving content to their link library or adding them directly to content collections and sharing their research with their peers . To make the bookmarking process a breeze, elink also has a chrome extension .

Simply click on the extension or right-click on any webpage to save the content directly to your elink dashboard.

Researchers can edit the title and description to add their own voices or notes. They can even bundle links together and share their link collection with others as a newsletter or embed the collection on your blog/website!

Key Features of elink:

  • Save links quickly using the chrome extension
  • Create and share research links as a newsletter or embed it on your website
  • Easy user-interface
  • Paid plans start at Pro Monthly ($15/month), Pro 1 Year ($12/month), and Pro 2 years ($10/month).

3. GanttPRO

GanttPRO: Tool for researchers

No matter what kind of research you do, you need to organize, plan, and stay focused on all of your activities.

Without a robust planning tool, researchers may fall behind the schedule and lose their progress.

GanttPRO project and task management tool makes it easy for single researchers and groups of any size to plan their tasks on a visually appealing Gantt chart timeline, follow their progress, and all the deadlines.

GanttPRO allows researchers to create a limitless number of tasks, groups of tasks, and subtasks on one timeline.

Besides, it’s a perfect planning tool for assigning tasks to your fellow researchers or creating virtual resources, whoever or whatever they may be. The software is a good choice for collaboration, time tracking, as well as sharing and exporting your schedules.

Key Features of GanttPRO:

  • Dozens of ready-made templates.
  • Real-time collaboration with fellow researchers.
  • Elegant user interface with a short learning curve.
  •   Free 14-day trial with all features available.
  • Paid plans start from Team ($4.5/user/month), Individual ($15/month), Enterprise (contact sales).

4. Grammarly

Grammarly: Writing tool for researchers

Research work often involves hours of proofreading and spellchecking to make your research professional .

Grammarly, a writing enhancement tool will save you a ton of time and effort doing this dreaded task! Apart from basic spellchecking and corrections, Grammarly includes a grammar checker, a punctuation checker, a vocabulary enhancer, and even a plagiarism checker tool!

This awesome tool scans your research for more than 250 types of grammar mistakes in six distinct writing genres and leaves you with error-free writing. With thorough explanations for all your errors and weekly progress reports .

Grammarly is a must-have tool for researchers. It’s available as a browser extension, a desktop app, a web-based app, and a Microsoft add-in. Many of the Grammarly alternatives are also available in the market that is equally good.

Key Features of Grammarly: 

  • Works with the majority of online tools like Word, Slack, etc.
  • Plagiarism checker tool
  • Tone detector
  • Paid plans start from: Premium ($11.66/month), Business ($12.50/month)

Read more:   10 Best Writing Apps To Make You A Better Writer!

5. Typeset.io

Typeset.io: Researcher's tool

With over 100,000+ verified journal formats to choose from, Typeform makes the process of research a bit too easy! Quickly copy-paste or upload your paper on Typeset and follow any citation style you need.

Typeset also has a plagiarism and grammar checker built in to ensure your writing is error-free. Once done uploading and citing, click on autoformat to generate your report in seconds.

You can also download your research in PDF , Docx, LaTeX file, or even as a Zip file. With collaboration features built-in, you can invite your fellow researchers to the platform and work together.

Key Features of Typeset: 

  • Over 100,000+ journal formats to choose from
  • Plagiarism and grammar checker tool
  • Editing services to improve your publication chances
  • Paid plans start from: Researcher ($8/month), Team($6/month), Journals / Publishers (contact sales)

6. Scrivener

Scrivener: Writing tool for researchers

Scrivener is another great tool for research writing and keeping your notes organized.

Used by researchers, screenwriters, novelists, non-fiction writers, students, journalists, academics, lawyers, translators, and more, Scrivener is a tool made for long writing projects.

On signing up, you are quickly presented with its editor, with a sidebar to keep everything in place. You can also break your content into manageable sections of any size and leave Scrivener to join them together.

For novelists and storytellers, there’s also a corkboard to visualize your storyline and move cards around as you like.

The outliner keeps a synopsis of what you have already written, along with word count data and metadata. Users can arrange their research articles and other files in folders and subfolders.

Key Features of Scrivener: 

  • Desktop and mobile apps
  • Outline creator
  • Easy organization
  • Paid plans start from $40.84/one-time fee

7. ProofHub

ProofHub: Tool for researchers

You must organize, prepare, and stay focused on all of your efforts, regardless of the type of research you conduct.

Researchers may go behind schedule and lose progress if they don’t have a good task management tool. ProofHub is an all-in-one project and team management application that allows research teams and organizations of any size to efficiently plan their research projects in one spot.

ProofHub allows you to create, assign and track tasks using effective task management features like Kanban boards and table view. Researchers can also get a visual idea of how their project is progressing using robust Gantt charts.

ProofHub also allows you to store and jot down all the data or information collected through your research in Notes. You can even create different notebooks and store your information according to the topic. Not just that, you can even share your research work with your team members.

Teams can also share and store files, documents, and images in ProofHub’s files section. Managers can track their team’s time spent on a specific research task using automatic and manual timers.

Team members can also brainstorm ideas or have real-time discussions in ProofHub’s discussions section and make way for better research work. 

Key features of ProofHub:

  • Ready to use project templates
  • Task management
  • Time tracking and project reporting
  • Team collaboration (chat, notes, and discussions)
  • File management
  • Online proofing
  • 14-day free trial with all the features.

8. Google Scholar

Google scholar for research work

Next up is an amazing research tool by Google called Google Scholar. Google Scholar provides a quick way to broadly search for scholarly literature from one location.

Look for articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions, from professional societies, online repositories, universities, academic publishers, and other websites.

Researchers can also explore related works, citations, authors, and publications easily. Create a public author profile and see who’s citing your recent publication. Google Scholar also allows its users to keep up with recent developments in any area of research.

Key Features of Google Scholar: 

  • Create a public author page
  • Look for information across Google’s database
  • Easy to use
  • Free to use

Endnote for formatting reserch reports

Endnote wants you to research smarter by simplifying the tiresome work of formatting bibliographies, finding full text, and searching for references.

Endnote is collaborative in nature as it allows you to share selected groups of references, manage team access, and track activity and changes from one single dashboard.

With smarter insights, Endnote automatically finds the impact of your references and finds the best-fit journal for your papers.

The platform also enables users to automatically create, format, and update bibliographies. Quickly export your references and full-text PDFs into EndNote and start working instantly.

With a bunch of EndNote templates and plug-ins, researchers can enhance their Endnote experience and get the most out of the platform.

Key Features of Endnote: 

  • Import filters for prior research
  • Track your teammates’ activity on your shared library
  • Automatic reference and link updating
  • Paid plans start from $249

10. Evernote

Evernote: To do list for researchers

Evernote is a note-taking app that can be very useful while conducting research . The app helps you store all your personal ideas, to-do listsm4, notes, and research links in one place.

Create separate tags and folders for the different types of information you are saving and keep it all organized.

Evernote auto-syncs across all your devices, including desktop, smartphone, and tablet, so you can switch between devices without losing your data.

Its Chrome browser extension called the Evernote web clipper is a great add-on for saving articles or other content on the internet while doing your research.

Just click the browser extension to save the entire page or highlights to your Evernote notebook along with any notes you have about that page.

Key Features of Evernote: 

  • Keep notes, articles, and other content in one place
  • Chrome extension for clipping content
  • Set reminders
  • Paid plans start from Plus ($34.99 per year or $3.99 per month), Premium ($69.99 per year or $7.99 per month), and Evernote Business (contact sales)

11. Mendeley

Mendeley: Reference management software for researchers

Mendeley is a reference management software that allows researchers to create references, citations, and bibliographies in multiple journal styles with just a few clicks.

Quickly access your library from anywhere – from anywhere. Windows, Mac, Linux, etc and add papers directly from your browser with a few clicks or import any documents from your desktop to your library.

With its research network, researchers connect and network with over 6 million users. Users can create groups to carry out discussions, discover research, and follow curated bibliographies.

There are also over 250,000 + science, technology, and health jobs to advance your career and grant info from over 5000 organizations to fund your next research !

Key Features of Mendeley: 

  • Annotate and organize documents
  • Find and create groups with fellow researchers
  • Grant information from over 5000 organizations
  • Paid plans start from $55/year for 5 GB to $165/year to unlimited storage

12. ContentMine

Content mine: Tool for content mining

ContentMine offers a variety of text mining services to help researchers find, download, analyze, and extract knowledge from academic papers.

ContentMine builds its own open-source code to help out researchers find papers and not waste time on the internet doing so. They can also convert academic papers , PDFs to HTML, or to almost any format.

ContentMine can also extract data from tables and graphs, reducing the time taken to conduct a meta-analysis. The platform also offers consultancy as well as training workshops to educate people on the work they do and how.

Key Features of ContentMine: 

  • Extract data from tables and graphs
  • Quickly mine text from hundreds of papers
  • Workshops and training
  • Contact sales

13. ResearchGate

Researchgate tool for research publications

The last tool on our list of awesome tools for researchers is a platform called ResearchGate. ResearchGate gives you access to over 135 million publication pages, allowing you to stay up to date with what’s happening in your field.

With a built-in community, researchers can share their research, collaborate with peers, and discover new papers and bibliographies.

ResearchGate also provides deep analytics on who’s been reading your work and keeps track of your citations. With over 17 million users, ResearchGate is a research community to join!

Key Features of ResearchGate: 

  • Share and find researchers
  • Analytics to see who’s reading your work
  • Citation tracking

Before you go!

Our team at  bit.ai  has created a few awesome templates to make your research process more efficient. Make sure to check them out before you go, y our team might need them!

  • Case Study Template
  • Research Paper Template
  • Competitor Research Template
  • Brainstorming Template
  • SWOT Analysis Template
  • White Paper Template

Final Words

There you have it folks, our list of amazing websites, apps, and software to use while conducting your research. Research is hard work- from finding and managing content to organizing and publishing- research takes a lot of time and effort.

However, with our awesome list of tools, researchers are surely going to get out the most of their time and effort and get work done more efficiently. Did we miss any awesome tool for researchers out there? Let us know by tweeting us at @bit_docs.

Infographic of reserach tools

Further reads:

  • Top 11 Code Editors for Software Developers
  • Collaborative Research: Definition, Benefits & Tips!
  • Best Resource Management Tools and Software
  • How to Write a Research Proposal?

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Academia Insider

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:

Find literature using semantic search. I use this almost every day to answer a question that pops into my head.
An increasingly powerful and useful application, especially effective for conducting literature reviews through its advanced semantic search capabilities.
An AI-powered search engine specifically designed for academic research, providing a range of innovative features that make it extremely valuable for academia, PhD candidates, and anyone interested in in-depth research on various topics.
A tool designed to streamline the process of academic writing and journal submission, offering features that integrate directly with Microsoft Word as well as an online web document option.
A tools that allow users to easily understand complex language in peer reviewed papers. The free tier is enough for nearly everyone.
A versatile and powerful tool that acts like a personal data scientist, ideal for any research field. It simplifies data analysis and visualization, making complex tasks approachable and quick through its user-friendly interface.

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!

article research tool

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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15 Best Free Web Tools to Organize Your Research

How to stay organized when researching and writing papers

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Organizing research is important not only for your own sanity, but because when it comes time to unfold the data and put it to use, you want the process to go as smoothly as possible. This is where research organizers come in.

There are lots of free web-based organizers that you can use for any purpose. Maybe you're collecting interviews for a news story, digging up newspaper archives for a history project, or writing a research paper over a science topic. Research organizers are also helpful for staying productive and preparing for tests.

Regardless of the topic, when you have multiple sources of information and lots to comb through later, optimizing your workflow with a dedicated organizer is essential.

Patrick Tomasso / Unsplash

Many of these tools provide unique features, so you might decide to use multiple resources simultaneously in whatever way suits your particular needs.

Research and Study

You need a place to gather the information you're finding. To avoid a cluttered space when collecting and organizing data, you can use a tool dedicated to research.

  • Pocket : Save web pages to your online account to reference them again later. It's much tidier than bookmarks, and it can all be retrieved from the web or the Pocket mobile app .
  • Mendeley : Organize papers and references, and generate citations and bibliographies.
  • Quizlet : Learn vocabulary with these free online flashcards .
  • Wikipedia : Find information on millions of different topics.
  • Quora : This is a question and answer website where you can ask the community for help with any question.
  • SparkNotes : Free online study guides on a wide variety of subjects, anything from famous literary works of the past century to the present day. 
  • Zotero : Collect, manage, and cite your research sources. Lets you organize data into collections and search through them by adding tags to every source. This is a computer program, but there's a browser extension that helps you send data to it.
  • Google Scholar : A simple way to search for scholarly literature on any subject.
  • Diigo : Collect, share, and interact with information from anywhere on the web. It's all accessible through the browser extension and saved to your online account.
  • GoConqr : Create flashcards, mind maps, notes, quizzes, and more to bridge the gap between your research and studying.

Writing Tools

Writing is the other half of a research paper, so you need somewhere useful to go to jot down notes, record information you might use in the final paper, create drafts, track sources, and finalize the paper.

  • Web Page Sticky Notes : For Chrome users, this tool lets you place sticky notes on any web page as you do your research. There are tons of settings you can customize, they're backed up to your Google Drive account, and they're visible not only on each page you created them on but also on a single page from the extension's settings.
  • Google Docs or Word Online : These are online word processors where you can write the entire research paper, organize lists, paste URLs, store off-hand notes, and more.
  • Google Keep : This note-taking app and website catalogs notes within labels that make sense for your research. Access them from the web on any computer or from your mobile device. It supports collaborations, custom colors, images, drawings, and reminders.
  • Yahoo Notepad : If you use Yahoo Mail , the notes area of your account is a great place to store text-based snippets for easy recall when you need them.
  • Notion : Workflows, notes, and more, in a space where you can collaborate with others.

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AI Research Tools

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SciSpace is an AI research assistant that simplifies researching papers through AI-generated explanations and a network showing connections between relevant papers. It aims to automate

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HyperWrite is an AI-powered writing assistant that helps you create high-quality content quickly and easily. It can also provide personalized suggestions as you write to

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Citation Generator

CitationGenerator.AI is a powerful, expert-verified tool designed to simplify generating citations across major formats like APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard. This tool is essential for

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Genspark is an AI Agent engine where specialized AI agents perform research and generate custom pages called Sparkpages. Free from biases and SEO-driven content, Sparkpages

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Julius is an AI data analysis tool that helps you visualize, analyze, and get insights from all kinds of data. With Julius, you can simply

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Elicit is an AI research assistant that can search, summarize, extract data from, and engage in conversations about over 125 million scientific papers. Elicit’s AI-driven

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ResearchRabbit

ResearchRabbit is an AI-powered research app that makes discovering and organizing academic papers incredibly easy. It allows you to view interactive visualizations and create collections

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SciSummary is an AI-powered tool that uses language models like GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 to automatically summarize lengthy scientific articles and research papers. It’s ideal for

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BRAiN Assistant

Brain Assistant is an AI-powered tool that offers real-time internet searching along with the ability to create a personalized knowledge base from various sources such

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Samwell AI is an AI writing assistant that’s specifically designed to help students and academics effortlessly write essays, research papers, and other academic content. Its

Discover the latest AI research tools to accelerate your studies and academic research. Search through millions of research papers, summarize articles, view citations, and more.

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08-20-2024 TECH

How AI tools help students—and their professors—in academic research

New systems can help surface relevant research papers and quickly understand what they have to say.

How AI tools help students—and their professors—in academic research

[Photo: Nikish Hiraman/peopleimages.com/Adobe Stock]

BY  Steven Melendez 7 minute read

For students and professional scholars alike, starting a new research project typically means digging through academic literature to understand what others have already written.

That can take a considerable amount of time, with researchers tracking down and combing through journal articles to begin their research and contextualize their own findings. But a growing collection of AI-powered tools aims to make that process easier. These new tools can help researchers more quickly find relevant papers, pull out relevant information from them, or both.

“It can be a really helpful way to get started with research, especially for students who aren’t familiar with the research process,” says Breanne Kirsch, director of the library at Illinois College. “As long as they’re taught how to use it in an ethical way, and that they can then expand beyond what it does.”

A tool called Elicit can help researchers conduct what are called systematic reviews , which involve going through copious amounts of published research to find an answer to a question, like how a particular drug affects a medical condition. “It’s all very, very manual,” says James Brady, head of engineering at Elicit. “It takes teams of people many months, and you know, costs hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to do these things.” 

Elicit can make that process much faster, and also help researchers by quickly finding and summarizing published papers related to a particular question. It can also generate tables describing a whole set of relevant papers, with columns for data points like algorithms and statistical techniques used, variables examined, and the number of participants in experiments. 

The company recommends researchers still look at the original papers, and Brady emphasizes that the tool doesn’t replace the human judgment and analysis necessary to scientific research. “It’s not like you take the final step of Elicit and hit the publish button and then it ends up in Nature or something,” he says, but it can still greatly speed the process of sifting through and understanding prior work.

Understanding how AI can help academic research is part of a larger industry question of how and when the technology can replace or supplement traditional web search tools. And since the 1990s , computer scientists have realized that the academic publishing landscape—where scholars cite each other’s papers and publish in journals with a particular reputation in a particular field—isn’t that different from the internet ecosystem . That means techniques for finding relevant materials, minimizing AI errors and hallucinations, and presenting useful and verifiable results to the user may transfer from academia to the broader web.

Indeed, not everyone searching for scientific answers is a professional scientist. And the organizations behind these tools say they can be especially helpful for people looking to understand new fields of interest, whether they’re students, professionals doing interdisciplinary work, or interested members of the public.

Eric Olson, cofounder and CEO at AI research search engine Consensus , says about 50% of the tool’s research is at academic institutions, where it’s often used by graduate students. “We typically do quite well with folks who need that easy, quick access to research but maybe aren’t a full-blown expert yet,” he says.

Consensus lets users type in natural language queries to get answers summarized from across published work. It surfaces summaries of particular papers, metadata like publication year and citation count, and an indication of how much scientific consensus there is about a particular question. Another popular audience for the tool is healthcare workers, including doctors, who use the tool to get insights more quickly than traditional scholarly search engines or Google can provide. Everyday users also use Consensus to research health topics, parenting practices, and policy issues in the news, Olson says.

Like other companies in the field, Consensus doesn’t simply rely on a single GPT-style large language model to generate answers to user questions. The company deploys a custom search engine to find papers addressing a query, and a variety of expert-trained language models to extract relevant information and—equally important—verify the paper is actually on topic, cutting the chance that an overzealous AI model will try to point out facts that aren’t actually there.

“I’m only gonna let this go to the model if we think that it actually has a relevant insight in it,” Olson says. “It’s a really great trick to reduce the risk of misinterpreting the paper.”

Academic publishing giant Elsevier has similarly developed a tool called Scopus AI to search through research collected in its Scopus database , which includes article abstracts and metadata from tens of thousands of journals (including those published by rival publishers). Scopus AI can generate summary responses based on particular queries, suggest additional questions to help users expand their knowledge of the field, and highlight “foundational papers” and “topic expert” authors who have especial influence in an area of expertise.

“We’ve actually found this is quite a shared need across a number of different people who are at this precipice of trying to understand another domain,” says Maxim Khan, SVP of analytics products and data platform at Elsevier.

Khan says users have confirmed it helps them understand new fields faster and come across papers they might not otherwise have discovered. Thanks in part to licensing terms, the tool doesn’t include full text, meaning users can’t directly query about material in articles beyond the abstracts and citations.

Other software can help users dive deep into specific research. An AI tool from JStor , still in limited beta, lets users see article summaries customized to their particular queries and can answer questions based on document contents, pointing to particular passages that contain the answer. That can help users figure out which papers are relevant enough for a close read, and the tool can also point to other topics or particular papers for a user to investigate based on particular passages. 

“The user actually is now having a conversation with the article, and so they’re engaging with the article in a completely different way,” says Kevin Guthrie, president of JStor’s nonprofit parent, Ithaka. “Obviously, there’s a very big difference from just downloading an article or downloading the PDF and reading it.”

The organization, with its focus on helping students with research, deliberately doesn’t generate aggregate answers to particular questions from multiple articles. Beth LaPensee, senior product manager at Ithaka, says the software can help students learning research skills and specialized vocabulary understand material they might otherwise struggle with. In a June blog post, Guthrie and LaPensee compared the process to learning the basic plot of a Shakespeare play before diving into the antiquated text, and say it can be especially helpful with humanities and social science papers that customarily don’t include abstracts.

The software has also proven helpful to professors. “One faculty member we were talking to said that they could do in one day what used to take them four or five days,” LaPensee says.

And the organization has found participants in the AI beta, which is slated to expand in the fall, spend “significantly more time on JStor” than other users. 

Measuring results—and even knowing what to measure—is naturally an important part of testing new AI resources. Since 2015, a project called Semantic Scholar has focused on using AI to analyze scientific papers. It’s part of Ai2 , the AI research institute founded by late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and today it includes features to help users understand papers, like surfacing definitions of technical terms from within a paper or other research it cites, answering general questions about specific papers, and generating “tl; dr” summaries of papers based on the types of descriptions authors post on social media.

How to test whether those summaries were helpful wasn’t immediately obvious, recalls Dan Weld, chief scientist and general manager of Semantic Scholar. If users were benefiting from them, they might either click more articles from search results—if the summaries indicated they were interesting—or fewer, if the summaries helped them weed out extraneous results. But when the summaries were later added to email alerts, the results seemed positive—users clicked fewer emailed articles overall, but were more likely to save articles they clicked, suggesting the summaries steered them to interesting work. 

Evaluating a feature Semantic Scholar is currently testing to answer questions from across multiple papers is even more challenging, according to Weld, who says, “It’s really quite difficult to compare different systems. There are some other systems out there that do question answering—we think ours is better than theirs, but we can’t prove it yet.”

And since different AI research tools have access to different sets of papers as well as different features, researchers may still find they need to use multiple AI platforms—often along with traditional database tools—to find everything they need. It’s important to note, Illinois College’s Kirsch says, that reading AI summaries can’t substitute for working through actual papers and verifying that they say what the tools claim, tempting though it can be.

“While the generative AI tools may help as a starting point, just like Wikipedia would, you still want to go to some of those actual sources,” she says. “You can’t just rely solely on the GenAI tools. You also need to look at the sources themselves and make sure it really does make sense for what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to research.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steven Melendez is an independent journalist living in New Orleans.   More

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10 Best AI Tools for Academic Research in 2024 (Free and Paid)

Ayush Chaturvedi

20 min read

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Research can be a time-consuming endeavour. Sifting through mountains of literature, analyzing data, and crafting clear arguments can feel overwhelming. 

However, you can streamline much of this research process with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, some of which are the best for research.

These AI-powered assistants can search vast databases in seconds, pinpoint relevant studies, and customize data to your specific research question. 

They can also recommend key research articles and highlight emerging trends within your field, saving you time.

Additionally, with the help of the best AI tools for research, you can improve your writing and streamline your workflow with real-time grammar and punctuation checks, stylistic suggestions, and clear explanations of complex concepts.

But how do you choose?

Don't worry; we've got you covered. 

We have created a list of all the best AI tools for research on the internet, filtering based on various factors and handpicked the top 10. 

These research AI tools not only assist you in research but also integrate with your workflow and reduce your overall workload. 

So let's get started.

Best AI Tools for Research at a Glance

What are research ai tools, benefits of using ai tools for research, factors to consider when choosing the best ai tools for research, top 10 best ai tools for research, key features of elephas , elephas pricing , elepahs reviews, chatgpt key features , chatgpt pricing , chatgpt reviews , typeset.io features:, typeset.io pricing , typeset.io reviews , quillbot key features , quillbot pricing , quillbot review , wordvice.ai features:, wordvice.ai pricing , wordvice.ai reviews , consensus ai key features , consensus ai pricing , consensus ai reviews , scite.ai features , scite.ai pricing , scite.ai reviews , scholarly key features, scholarcy pricing , scholarcy reviews , proofhub key features , proofhub pricing , proofhub reviews , research rabbit key features , research rabbit pricing , research rabbit reviews , limitations of ai tools for research, case study: how a professor used elephas in his lesson research process.

  • Conclusion 

1. Which AI is better for research?

2. is chatgpt good for research, 3. how can ai be used for research, 4. what is the best ai for phd.

Elephas: Summarize research, rewrite content in different styles, and organize summaries in a central "Super Brain" for easy access.

ChatGPT: Summarize news articles and answer research questions

Typeset.io: Streamline academic writing with templates and citation management. 

Quillbot: Rephrase text and summarize complex materials for research. 

Wordvice.ai : Ensure clarity, grammar, and originality in your academic writing.

Consensus AI: Search vast databases and filter research papers for quality.

Scite.ai: Get real citations and measure the credibility of research claims.

Scholarcy: Summarize complex articles and build a searchable research library.

ProofHub: Manage research projects with tasks, collaboration tools, and scheduling.

ResearchRabbit: Build a research library and get recommendations for new papers. 

Research AI tools are game-changers for students, academics, and researchers, streamlining the entire research process. 

With the help of the best AI tools for research as your personal research assistant, they help you find relevant articles, analyze information, and even improve your writing!

Imagine being able to find hundreds of relevant research papers in minutes,  or getting a clear summary of a complex article with the click of a button. That's the magic of AI research assistants.

Some specialize in specific areas, like grammar and plagiarism checking, while others focus on broader tasks like literature review and research question development.  

No matter your research needs, there's an AI tool out there to help you save time, improve your work, and produce higher-quality research. 

Let's look closer at the features that a research AI tool offers 

These AI-powered tools offer a variety of features such as:

  • Effortless searching: Quickly find high-quality research papers by entering your topic.
  • Smarter literature reviews: Get suggestions for key studies, authors, and research trends.
  • Enhanced writing: Improve your writing with grammar checks, stylistic suggestions, and help with complex concepts.
  • Citation management: Easily manage and format your citations to avoid plagiarism.
  • Research organization: Build your research library and organize articles for easy access.

These are just a few examples of how AI research tools can save you time and effort, allowing you to focus on the analysis and critical thinking that truly matters. 

Some tools even go beyond and offer a complete suite of AI features that cut down more than half of the research time.

Research can be a time-consuming endeavour. Sifting through mountains of literature, analyzing data, and crafting clear arguments can feel overwhelming. However, you can streamline much of this research process with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like Research AI tools. 

Here are some benefits you can gain with Research AI tools:

Effortless Information Retrieval: AI tools can search vast databases in seconds, pinpointing relevant studies and data tailored to your specific research question.

Smarter Literature Reviews: No more wading through mountains of papers. AI can recommend key research articles, and influential authors, and highlight emerging trends within your field, saving you time and ensuring a comprehensive review.

Idea Generation: If you struggle to spark new research ideas, then AI can help you. It can brainstorm fresh research questions, and hypotheses, and even suggest innovative experiment designs to propel your research forward.

Writing Assistant & Editor:  You can improve your writing and streamline your workflow with AI's editing prowess. Get real-time grammar and punctuation checks , stylistic suggestions, and clear explanations of complex concepts, all designed to elevate the quality of your research writing.

Enhanced Efficiency: AI automates tedious tasks like citation management and formatting, freeing you to focus on the analysis and interpretation of your research findings.

Personalized Research Assistant: AI tools can adapt to your research interests, suggesting relevant articles, recommending new avenues for exploration, and even summarizing complex research papers for a clearer understanding.

There are different AI tools present on the internet for different needs. So with the vast array of AI-powered research assistants available, selecting the most suitable tool can be problematic. 

Here are some key factors to consider, when you choosing the best AI Tools for Research:

Your Research Needs: Identify your specific needs. Are you searching for literature, summarizing complex papers, or improving your writing? Different tools excel in various areas.

Features Offered: Align the tool's features with your needs. Do you require real-time citation suggestions or plagiarism checkers?

Data Accuracy and Credibility: Ensure the tool retrieves information from reliable sources. Scite.ai stands out for highlighting the credibility of research claims.

Ease of Use: Consider the platform's user-friendliness. Look for intuitive interfaces and clear instructions.

Cost: AI tools often have varying pricing structures. Some offer free trials or basic plans, while others require subscriptions. Determine your budget and choose a tool that aligns with it.

Integration Capabilities: Does the tool integrate with your existing workflow? Look for options that seamlessly connect with your preferred reference managers or writing platforms.

Most importantly, remember that AI research assistants are only there to increase your productivity in the research process, not to replace it .

 

Elephas 

Summarizes research papers, Rewrites content in various tones, organizes your research in its second brain

Premium Plan Starts at $4.99

ChatGPT

Summarizes news articles and answers research questions

Premium Plan Starts at $20/month

Typeset.io

Predefined templates, Citation management

Premium Plan starts at $7.78/month

Quillbot 

Paraphrases text, Summarizes complex materials

Premium Plan starts at $4.17/month

Wordvice.ai

Grammar and clarity checks, Plagiarism detection

Premium Plan starts at $9.95/month

Consensus AI

AI-powered search engine, Filters results by quality

Premium Plan Starts at $8.99/month

Scite.ai

Real citations, Measures claim credibility

Premium Plan starts at $20/month

Scholarcy

Summarizes complex articles, Builds a searchable database

Premium Plan Starts at $4.99/month

ProofHub

Project management tools, Centralized collaboration

Premium Plan Starts at $45/month

ResearchRabbit

Recommends new papers, Visualizes connections

Free Forever

1. Elephas  

Elephas

Elephas is an innovative AI tool designed to supercharge your research and writing efficiency. It utilizes advanced technology to break down complex research papers, YouTube videos, and other content, extracting the key points and saving you valuable time.

Additionally, Elephas goes beyond summarizing – it can seamlessly integrate with your workflow and rewrite content in various tones, making it a versatile companion for all your writing needs. 

Elephas doesn't just summarize research papers; it extracts key points and integrates seamlessly with your workflow. Whether you're a student, researcher, or content creator, Elephas helps you achieve more in less time.

Effortless Sum marization: Extract key points from research papers and YouTube videos with ease.

Centralized Hub: Keep all your research summaries organized in one place with Elephas Super Brain .

Seamless Content Creation: Create professional emails, engaging social media posts, and documents in just a few clicks.

Multiple Rewrite Modes: Choose from a variety of writing styles to make your content more engaging.

Super-Command Bar: Increase your productivity with features like article summarization and data extraction.

$4.99/month

$4.17/month 

$129

$8.99/month

$7.17/month

$199

$14.99/month 

$12.50/month

$249

Elephas is also one of the best AI Tools for Summarizing Research Papers in the market right now. And it bundles up with a powerful iOS app as well.

It works locally and it's 100% privacy friendly!

If you own a Mac, you should definitely try it out.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT , the tool behind the existence of many AI tools, is undeniably one of the best AI tools for research. With the right prompts, you can easily summarize any news articles , long notes, etc., in seconds. You can also ask ChatGPT research-related questions to gain a better understanding of research papers. Furthermore, you can improve your writing and avoid any grammar and punctuation mistakes. With the help of ChatGPT, the number of things you can do is endless.

Effortless Information Retrieval: Find the studies and data you need in a flash.

Smarter Literature Reviews: Get suggestions for key papers, authors, and research trends.

Idea Generation on Demand: Spark new research questions, hypotheses, and experiment designs.

Writing Assistant: Improve your writing with grammar checks, stylistic suggestions, and simplified explanations of complex concepts.

  • Premium Plan Starts at $20/month 

Some users have reported false money deductions and low-quality service provided in the premium subscription.

3. Typeset.io

Typeset.io

Typeset.io streamlines the entire academic writing process, saving you time and frustration.  This user-friendly platform offers a variety of features to help you write, collaborate, and publish top-notch research. From predefined templates to AI-powered writing assistance, Typeset.io empowers researchers of all levels to achieve their scholarly goals.

Effortless Formatting: Predefined templates ensure your paper meets journal requirements.

Citation Breeze: Manage citations and references effortlessly, with automatic generation.

Seamless Collaboration: Work together on research papers in real time.

Smart Journal Selection: Find the perfect fit for your research with a built-in journal database.

Premium Plan Starts at $7.78/month

Users have reported that the tool doesn't notify at the end of the free trial and sneakily charges for the premium plan. Additionally, once the plan is purchased, the money is non-refundable. Some have claimed that even after cancelling the subscription, the customer service did not cancel it and still charged their cards.

4. Quillbot 

Quillbot

Quillbot is your AI research companion, offering several time-saving features to streamline your workflow. It is designed to assist researchers of all levels. This tool utilizes advanced learning algorithms to enhance your writing and comprehension skills. With Quillbot, you can confidently paraphrase text, summarize complex materials, and ensure clear, plagiarism-free writing. Additionally, you can perform citations with high accuracy. Quillbot streamlines your workflow and strengthens your writing.

Paraphrasing & Summarizing: Quillbot rewrites sentences and condenses lengthy passages, saving you time and effort.

Language Enhancement & Learning: Improve your writing with advanced suggestions and explanations, perfect for non-native speakers.

Research Brainstorming: Generate fresh ideas from just a few keywords, overcoming writer's block.

Academic Accuracy & Citation Help: Ensure your writing matches specific citation styles and uses precise academic language.

  • Premium Plan starts at $4.17/month 

Users have reported that the tool is working slowly when used in Microsoft Word, and it often uses complex words while paraphrasing. Some have also reported that the rephrased content on Quillbot is detected as AI-generated content on various AI detection tools.

5. Wordvice.ai

Wordvice.ai

Wordvice AI is one of the best AI tools for research, it is your one-stop shop for powerful writing assistance. This AI-powered tool uses cutting-edge technology to streamline your research workflow, saving you time and effort. From basic grammar and clarity checks to advanced plagiarism detection, Wordvice AI helps you to write with confidence and produce polished, original academic content.

All-in-one editing: Grammar, style, clarity, and fluency checks with real-time feedback.

Vocabulary booster: Get suggestions for synonyms and alternative phrasing to diversify your writing.

Academic writing companion: Ensures proper citation format, maintains a scholarly tone, and adheres to research conventions.

Originality assured: Scans millions of sources to prevent plagiarism in your work.

Premium Plan starts at $9.95/month 

Users have reported that certain sentence patterns generated by AI are already found on existing web pages, which has led to an increase in plagiarism within content.

6. Consensus AI

Consensus AI

Consensus AI is an innovative platform that uses artificial intelligence to simplify your search process. In just minutes, Consensus AI can search through vast databases and deliver hundreds of relevant, high-quality research papers directly to you. Also, Consensus AI filters results by date, study type, and journal quality, ensuring you find high-quality, credible sources to strengthen your research.

AI-powered Search Engine: Enter your research question and let Consensus AI scour vast databases to find relevant papers.

Time-Saving Efficiency: Gather hundreds of papers in minutes, freeing you up to focus on analysis and writing.

Comprehensive Results: Access a diverse range of studies, including randomized trials, reviews, and observational studies.

High-Quality Papers: Filter results by journal quality to ensure the credibility of your sources.

  • Premium Plan Starts at $8.99/month 

Users have reported that when we try to share the live demo over Zoom, the tool becomes slow and hangs. They think it is a hassle to jump between the browser and Zoom. They suggest introducing some integration features in the tool as a good solution.

7. Scite.ai 

Scite.ai

Scite.ai is one of the best for reliable research assistance powered by Artificial Intelligence.  Scite.ai tackles a common problem with AI research tools – unreliable citations.  Unlike others, Scite.ai provides you with real citations to published papers,  so you can be confident in the information you use. Even better, Scite.ai can analyze the research and tell you how many studies support or challenge a specific claim. 

Create Dashboards: Organize your research findings in a user-friendly format.

Journal and Institution Metrics: Gain insights into the reputation of academic sources.

Interactive Visualizations: You can see research trends and connections come through visualizations of the tool. 

Measure Claim Credibility: Scite.ai analyzes the strength of a claim by showing you how many studies support or refute it.

Premium Plan starts at $20/month 

Users have noticed that sometimes the tool produces inaccurate citations, which can be problematic for researchers who rely on its accuracy. Additionally, some users believe that the tool's pricing is significantly higher compared to its competitors.

Scite.ai Reviews

8. Scholarcy

Scholarcy

Scholarcy is an AI-powered tool that acts like a personal research assistant, summarizing complex articles, reports, and even book chapters for you.  Scholarcy quickly helps you understand the key points of any document and assess its relevance to your work, saving you precious time and effort. Whether you're a researcher, student, or just curious about the latest advancements, Scholarcy helps you quickly grasp key findings and identify relevant sources

Key Points at a Glance: Scholarcy extracts crucial information and organizes it into clear categories, making it easy to grasp the main ideas.

Seamless Integration: Scholarcy offers handy Chrome and Edge browser extensions, allowing you to summarize research directly from your web browser.

Visual Aids: Scholarcy can extract figures, tables, and images from articles, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the research.

Organized Knowledge: Build your searchable database of summarized research, making it easy to revisit key information later.

  • Premium Plan Starts at $4.99/month 

Some users are not satisfied with the complete summaries produced by Scholarcy, as some of the sentences are not actual sentences and need to be corrected. Additionally, some sentences do not make any sense. Other users have claimed that the quality of the tool has significantly dropped in recent months and it feels glitchy while using it.

9. ProofHub

ProofHub

ProofHub is one of the best AI tools for research to streamline research projects. It's an all-in-one project management tool designed specifically to make research teams more efficient and effective. ProofHub centralizes everything your team needs in a single platform, allowing seamless collaboration and communication.  Save valuable time and avoid confusion by ditching the scattered emails, documents, and endless meetings.

Effortless Task & Project Management: Organize your research projects with ease using powerful tools like Kanban boards and Gantt charts.

Centralized Hub for Collaboration: Keep your team on the same page with a central platform for file sharing, discussions, and real-time feedback.

Streamlined Time Tracking & Scheduling: Never miss a deadline again! ProofHub's time tracking and scheduling features help you stay on top of your research project's progress.

Automated Workflows: Save even more time by automating repetitive tasks and creating custom workflows perfectly suited to your research needs.

  • Premium Plan Starts at $45/month 

Users have expressed dissatisfaction with the user interface and email notifications of the tool, stating that they are not up to par. In addition, some have reported that certain features in Proofhub are not as impressive as those of its competitors.

10. Research Rabbit

Research Rabbit

ResearchRabbit is another best AI tools for research, it helps you navigate through the vast world of scientific literature. Nicknamed the "Spotify for Papers," this innovative tool lets you explore research like never before. Build collections of articles you find interesting, and ResearchRabbit will cleverly suggest new papers that align with your specific interests. No more endless searches – ResearchRabbit becomes your personalized research assistant, saving you time and frustration.

Build your research library: Collect and organize articles you find interesting, all in one place.

Smart recommendations: Never miss a groundbreaking study! ResearchRabbit suggests new papers based on your interests, saving you valuable time.

Visualize connections: See how different research areas, authors, and ideas are linked together.

Collaboration made easy: Share your research collections with colleagues to work together more effectively.

Free Forever 

We couldn't find any public reviews for the Research Rabbit. Therefore, we advise users to proceed with caution.

Many best AI tools for research suit different types of people, and these research AI tools have streamlined tasks and uncovered connections. However, they still have many limitations compared to manual research processes. Here's a closer look.

1. Accuracy and Bias: AI tools rely on the data they're trained on. If the data is biased or inaccurate, the results can be misleading. It's crucial to critically evaluate AI outputs and not rely solely on them.

2. Depth vs. Breadth: AI tools can efficiently scan vast amounts of literature, but they may miss nuances or subtleties within research papers. In-depth analysis and critical thinking remain essential for a comprehensive understanding.

3. Overreliance on Automation: AI shouldn't replace the core research process. Researchers should use AI to streamline tasks, not eliminate critical steps like evaluating source credibility and understanding research context.

4. Black Box Problem:  Sometimes, AI won't explain its reasoning behind results. This lack of transparency can make it difficult to assess the trustworthiness of findings or suggestions.

5. Limited Scope: AI tools might not cover all relevant sources, especially niche or emerging research areas. Supplement your search with traditional methods like library databases and expert consultations.

In our community, we have found Elephas being used by some professors at a university, and they have shared their experiences on how they used it in their lesson research process. Here is how they did it:

1. Summarization: The professor utilized Elephas' ability to generate concise summaries of different textbooks and research papers. This allowed him to quickly grasp the core arguments and findings of numerous studies, saving him hours of dedicated reading time.

2. Video Research: Then the professor had to gather more knowledge to create a lesson plan, so he searched for some of the best lengthy video lectures. Packed with historical insights, these videos were no longer a trouble because Elephas efficiently summarized key points from them, enabling our professor to include this valuable information in his lessons without spending hours glued to the screen.

3. Building Knowledge Base: Finally, the professor used Elephas Super Brain to create a centralized hub for all his research summaries. This eliminated the need to sift through countless folders and documents, allowing him to access critical information instantly. Additionally, he utilized the Super Brain to better understand the lesson plan through the Super Brain chat feature of Elephas.

Let's see what Elephas was able to do for our professor who is striving to teach his students in-depth subject knowledge:

1. Increased Efficiency: The professor has seen a significant reduction in research time, freeing up valuable hours for lesson planning and development.

2. Deeper Lesson Understanding: With more time at his disposal, our professor was able to delve into the research he found most compelling, leading to a deeper understanding of historical topics.

3. Engaging Lectures: By using key insights from research summaries provided by Elephas, the professor's lectures became more informative and engaging for his students, helping in their understanding of the topic faster than before.

The professor's experience explains how Elephas can revolutionize the research process for academics. By saving time and streamlining workflows, Elephas helps researchers get deeper into their respective fields and create truly impactful learning experiences and also cut their research process to more than half.

Conclusion  

In summary, AI research assistants are transforming how researchers approach their work. These tools can summarize complex information, find relevant studies, and even suggest new research ideas. Top choices include Elephas (which summarizes research papers and YouTube videos), ChatGPT (which summarizes articles and answers questions), and Typeset.io (which streamlines academic writing).

However, make sure to pick the best AI tool for research based on your requirements. Also, remember that while AI offers significant time savings and improved efficiency, it shouldn't replace critical thinking and human expertise in research because AI has several limitations that can degrade your research quality.

Elephas is the best AI tool for research, offering key features for researchers such as summarizing research papers, articles, and YouTube videos. Additionally, you can upload data to a "super brain" for retrieval and chat with uploaded PDFs for deeper understanding. This makes Elephas a strong AI tool for research tasks

Yes, ChatGPT can be a helpful tool for initial research exploration. It can brainstorm ideas, summarize complex topics, and even find relevant sources. However, for in-depth research, specialized academic databases and citation tools are better suited. These resources provide more reliable and accurate information, often with features like peer-reviewed content and advanced search options.

AI is revolutionizing research by summarizing complex information and assisting with content creation. AI tools can analyze research papers, articles, and even videos to extract key findings, saving researchers time and effort. AI can also rewrite content in different tones, making it a valuable asset for researchers who need to communicate their findings to various audiences.

Elephas is an AI tool designed to boost research and writing efficiency for PhD students and researchers. It summarizes complex research papers, YouTube videos, and other content, saving you time. Elephas also integrates with your workflow and rewrites content in various tones, making it a versatile PhD buddy.

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Title: personhood credentials: artificial intelligence and the value of privacy-preserving tools to distinguish who is real online.

Abstract: Anonymity is an important principle online. However, malicious actors have long used misleading identities to conduct fraud, spread disinformation, and carry out other deceptive schemes. With the advent of increasingly capable AI, bad actors can amplify the potential scale and effectiveness of their operations, intensifying the challenge of balancing anonymity and trustworthiness online. In this paper, we analyze the value of a new tool to address this challenge: "personhood credentials" (PHCs), digital credentials that empower users to demonstrate that they are real people -- not AIs -- to online services, without disclosing any personal information. Such credentials can be issued by a range of trusted institutions -- governments or otherwise. A PHC system, according to our definition, could be local or global, and does not need to be biometrics-based. Two trends in AI contribute to the urgency of the challenge: AI's increasing indistinguishability (i.e., lifelike content and avatars, agentic activity) from people online, and AI's increasing scalability (i.e., cost-effectiveness, accessibility). Drawing on a long history of research into anonymous credentials and "proof-of-personhood" systems, personhood credentials give people a way to signal their trustworthiness on online platforms, and offer service providers new tools for reducing misuse by bad actors. In contrast, existing countermeasures to automated deception -- such as CAPTCHAs -- are inadequate against sophisticated AI, while stringent identity verification solutions are insufficiently private for many use-cases. After surveying the benefits of personhood credentials, we also examine deployment risks and design challenges. We conclude with actionable next steps for policymakers, technologists, and standards bodies to consider in consultation with the public.
Comments: 63 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables
Subjects: Computers and Society (cs.CY)
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Meta kills off misinformation tracking tool CrowdTangle despite pleas from researchers, journalists

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FILE - A person stands in front of a Meta sign outside of the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., March 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by researchers, watchdog organizations and journalists to monitor social media posts, notably to track how misinformation spreads on the company’s platforms.

Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by researchers and nonprofits. In May, dozens of groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch and NYU’s Center for Social Media & Politics, sent a letter to the company asking that it keep the tool running through at least January so it would be available through the U.S. presidential elections.

“This decision jeopardizes essential pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile,” the letter said.

CrowdTangle, “has been an essential tool in helping researchers parse through the vast amount of information on the platform and identify harmful content and threats,” it added.

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In March, the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation sent Meta a similar letter asking it to keep the tool, which was available for free, functioning until January. That letter was also signed by several dozen groups and individual academic researchers.

“For years, CrowdTangle has represented an industry best practice for real-time platform transparency. It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civic discourse and democracy,” the Mozilla letter said.

Meta has released an alternative to CrowdTangle, called the Meta Content Library. But access to it is limited to academic researchers and nonprofits, which excludes most news organizations. Critics have also complained that it’s not as useful as CrowdTangle — at least not yet.

Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a blog post last week that the company has been gathering feedback about Meta Content Library from “hundreds of researchers in order to make it more user-friendly and help them find the data they need for their work.”

Meta said Wednesday that CrowdTangle doesn’t provide a complete picture of what is happening on its platforms and said its new tools are more comprehensive.

Meta acquired CrowdTangle in 2016.

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Wearing a white coat and glasses, Daniel Sun uses a pen to point at an area of a brain scan on a computer monitor

This UC professor's nanoparticle research could help treat hearing loss better

Wvxu highlights nih-funded study.

headshot of Tim Tedeschi

WVXU highlighted the University of Cincinnati's Daniel Sun, who is studying the potential of using magnetic nanoparticles as a delivery system for drugs to reach the inner ear to treat hearing loss. 

Aside from often ineffective steroids, there are currently no drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat hearing loss. While progress is being made on new treatments, getting these medications into the inner ear, where hearing loss occurs, is a major hurdle. 

"I like to make the analogy of launching astronauts into space," Sun, MD, the Myles L. Pensak, MD, Endowed Professor in Neurotology and Skull Base Surgery, director of the Division of Neurotology, neurotology fellowship program director and associate professor of otolaryngology in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and a UC Health physician, told WVXU. "We need to not only understand how the spaceship that the astronaut sits in works, but also systematically design the rocket itself so that it can lift the capsule into space. What we work on is designing the rocket that can get these medications into the ear."

Funded by a career development award of just more than $1 million from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, Sun and colleagues are s tudying how magnetic nanoparticles might be used to carry and steer medications to the parts of the ear where the hearing loss is occurring. He says they've been able to design specialized nanoparticles that can penetrate the ear while carrying and delivering some of these newer medications.

"One specific advantage with using these kind of nanoparticles is that they could be administered in a very minimally invasive way," Sun said. "Rather than having to administer these medications through a very delicate surgical procedure in the inner ear that requires general anesthesia and may have risks to further hearing loss, these nanoparticles with the medications they carry could potentially be just injected in a clinic and then penetrate into the inner ear without need for surgery or anesthesia."

Watch or listen to the WVXU story.

Read more about the research.

Featured photo at top of Sun pointing to a scan on a monitor. Photo/UC Health.

Sun was initially awarded this grant while at Johns Hopkins University and transferred the grant when he joined the faculty at UC. 

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  • 14 August 2024

Has your paper been used to train an AI model? Almost certainly

  • Elizabeth Gibney

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Person holding smartphone with logo of US publishing company John Wiley and Sons Inc. in front of their website.

Academic publisher Wiley has sold access to its research papers to firms developing large language models. Credit: Timon Schneider/Alamy

Academic publishers are selling access to research papers to technology firms to train artificial-intelligence (AI) models. Some researchers have reacted with dismay at such deals happening without the consultation of authors. The trend is raising questions about the use of published and sometimes copyrighted work to train the exploding number of AI chatbots in development.

Experts say that, if a research paper hasn’t yet been used to train a large language model (LLM), it probably will be soon. Researchers are exploring technical ways for authors to spot if their content being used.

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AI models fed AI-generated data quickly spew nonsense

Last month, it emerged that the UK academic publisher Taylor & Francis, had signed a US$10-million deal with Microsoft, allowing the US technology company to access the publisher’s data to improve its AI systems. And in June, an investor update showed that US publisher Wiley had earned $23 million from allowing an unnamed company to train generative-AI models on its content.

Anything that is available to read online — whether in an open-access repository or not — is “pretty likely” to have been fed into an LLM already, says Lucy Lu Wang, an AI researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. “And if a paper has already been used as training data in a model, there’s no way to remove that paper after the model has been trained,” she adds.

Massive data sets

LLMs train on huge volumes of data, frequently scraped from the Internet. They derive patterns between the often billions of snippets of language in the training data, known as tokens, that allow them to generate text with uncanny fluency.

Generative-AI models rely on absorbing patterns from these swathes of data to output text, images or computer code. Academic papers are valuable for LLM builders owing to their length and “high information density”, says Stefan Baack, who analyses AI training data sets at the Mozilla Foundation, a global non-profit organization in San Francisco, California that aims to keep the Internet open for all to access.

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How does ChatGPT ‘think’? Psychology and neuroscience crack open AI large language models

Training models on a large body of scientific information also give them a much better ability to reason about scientific topics, says Wang, who co-created S2ORC, a data set based on 81.1 million academic papers. The data set was originally developed for text mining — applying analytical techniques to find patterns in data — but has since been used to train LLMs.

The trend of buying high-quality data sets is growing. This year, the Financial Times has offered its content to ChatGPT developer OpenAI in a lucrative deal, as has the online forum Reddit, to Google. And given that scientific publishers probably view the alternative as their work being scraped without an agreement, “I think there will be more of these deals to come,” says Wang.

Information secrets

Some AI developers, such as the Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Network, intentionally keep their data sets open, but many firms developing generative-AI models have kept much of their training data secret, says Baack. “We have no idea what is in there,” he says. Open-source repositories such as arXiv and the scholarly database PubMed of abstracts are thought to be “very popular” sources, he says, although paywalled journal articles probably have their free-to-read abstracts scraped by big technology firms. “They are always on the hunt for that kind of stuff,” he adds.

Proving that an LLM has used any individual paper is difficult, says Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, a computer scientist at Imperial College London. One way is to prompt the model with an unusual sentence from a text and see whether the output matches the next words in the original. If it does, that is good evidence that the paper is in the training set. But if it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that the paper wasn’t used — not least because developers can code the LLM to filter responses to ensure they don’t match training data too closely. “It takes a lot for this to work,” he says.

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Robo-writers: the rise and risks of language-generating AI

Another method to check whether data are in a training set is known as membership inference attack. This relies on the idea that a model will be more confident about its output when it is seeing something that it has seen before. De Montjoye’s team has developed a version of this, called a copyright trap, for LLMs.

To set the trap, the team generates sentences that look plausible but are nonsense, and hides them in a body of work, for example as white text on a white background or in a field that’s displayed as zero width on a webpage. If an LLM is more ‘surprised’ — a measure known as its perplexity — by an unused control sentence than it is by the one hidden in the text, “that is statistical evidence that the traps were seen before”, he says.

Copyright questions

Even if it were possible to prove that an LLM has been trained on a certain text, it is not clear what happens next. Publishers maintain that, if developers use copyrighted text in training and have not sought a licence, that counts as infringement. But a counter legal argument says that LLMs do not copy anything — they harvest information content from training data, which gets broken up, and use their learning to generate new text.

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AI is complicating plagiarism. How should scientists respond?

Litigation might help to resolve this. In an ongoing US copyright case that could be precedent-setting, The New York Times is suing Microsoft and ChatGPT’s developer OpenAI in San Francisco, California. The newspaper accuses the firms of using its journalistic content to train their models without permission.

Many academics are happy to have their work included in LLM training data — especially if the models make them more accurate. “I personally don’t mind if I have a chatbot who writes in the style of me,” says Baack. But he acknowledges that his job is not threatened by LLM outputs in the way that those of other professions, such as artists and writers, are.

Individual scientific authors currently have little power if the publisher of their paper decides to sell access to their copyrighted works. For publicly available articles, there is no established means to apportion credit or know whether a text has been used.

Some researchers, including de Montjoye, are frustrated. “We want LLMs, but we still want something that is fair, and I think we’ve not invented what this looks like yet,” he says.

Nature 632 , 715-716 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02599-9

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Meta shutters tool used to fight disinformation, despite outcry

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Meta is shutting down its CrowdTangle tool, despite researchers petitioning the company to keep it going through January 2025. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

Meta has been bombarded by academics, researchers, politicians and regulators about a tool called CrowdTangle, which most people probably haven’t heard of. It’s been used to investigate the spread of violence, political disinformation and false narratives on Facebook and Instagram.

On Wednesday, less than three months before the U.S. election, Meta is shutting CrowdTangle down.

“Against this backdrop, Meta decided to kill one of the best tools that civil society had to monitor and report on the hate speech and election interference that is almost certain to proliferate on its platforms,” said Brandi Geurkink, executive director of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research.

Spanish speakers are an increasingly important segment of voters. New research examines their exposure to viral lies and conspiracy theories.

Untangling Disinformation

As the 2024 election nears, misinformation targeting latinos gains attention.

More than 50,000 people have signed letters and petitions urging Meta to halt its plans , or at least wait six months, according to the Mozilla Foundation.

Regulators, including the European Commission and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators and Congress members , say shuttering CrowdTangle now could be risky – given how useful it’s been to help researchers identify security threats and misinformation, especially around elections.

Meta’s new tool is more limited

CrowdTangle has given researchers and journalists a glimpse into how Facebook and Instagram’s algorithms work and how false information goes viral. But, over the past few years, Meta began to limit the tool and stop accepting new users.

A Meta spokeswoman declined to comment on CrowdTangle shutting down, but did point NPR to a blog post about a new tool called Meta Content Library. The company says the Content Library is more comprehensive and provides a better picture of what is happening on its platforms.

Facebook Disputes Claims It Fuels Political Polarization And Extremism

Facebook Disputes Claims It Fuels Political Polarization And Extremism

Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs told Axios that he hopes people will see the Content Library as "a very good-faith effort," that could "lead to a flurry of new and interesting research."

Meta requires researchers to apply to access the Content Library and they must be from “qualified academic or nonprofit institutions who are pursuing scientific or public interest research.” This access is far more limited than what Meta offered with CrowdTangle.

Hundreds of researchers, including Geurkink, say the Content Library “isn’t yet sufficient.” She said she welcomes improvements to the new tool, but “they hardly fill the gaping hole that is left by CrowdTangle’s shutdown.”

Researchers mourn the loss of CrowdTangle

CrowdTangle was created by Brandon Silverman and Matt Garmur in 2011 , who offered it to digital publishers like BuzzFeed, CNN and Vox. Facebook bought it in 2016 and let researchers and other media partners use it for free. It was the first time a major social network provided a tool to the public to monitor trends in real time.

Researchers and journalists quickly found that it was extremely useful in tracking viral false content, including Russian influence operations , accounts linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory and COVID misinformation .

Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes On Social Media, Research Shows

Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes On Social Media, Research Shows

Over the years, CrowdTangle has been used by hundreds of other academics, journalists and companies, who’ve covered topics that range from how the Islamic State has maintained social media accounts to best practices for comedians on Facebook .

The Coalition for Independent Technology Research published a website on Tuesday called “ RIP CrowdTangle ,” which will memorialize the work that was done with the tool. Other researchers and watchdogs are also mourning the loss of CrowdTangle.

“Shuttering this critical tool in another brazen blow to transparency across its platforms,” the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a coalition of academics and civil rights groups, said in a statement. “RIP Crowdtangle.”

  • disinformation
  • election misinformation

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