LibGuides: Research Skills: Using AI tools for research

AI for information searching

Unfortunately, popular free generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini are not reliable search engines. They work by making predictions based on data they have been trained on, rather than retrieving live information.

Do not use them for finding information, because you will have to fact-check everything, which is a lot of work.

However, there are reliable AI tools that can help with certain types of research projects, including literature and systematic reviews. Read more below.

For internet searching, use Microsoft Copilot or Perplexity AI, but be sure to click on the citations so that you use information directly from the original source.

AI for academic research

AI search tools do not rely solely on traditional keyword searching, they use algorithms to find related articles.

Many of the well-known AI literature review tools, like Elicit, ResearchRabbit, and Consensus utilise another AI tool called Semantic Scholar. It has a unique feature of using TL;DR (‘too long didn’t read’) summaries instead of abstracts. (Read more about TL;DR summaries https://www.tldrthis.com/.)

One of the advantages Semantic Scholar offers is that it accesses large open-source repositories like Open Alex, PubMed, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Wiley, ACM, IEEE, arXiv, and Unpaywall.

Traditional Approach to conducting academic research

· Step 1 - Search your own institution's library collections with carefully selected keywords

· Step 2 - Identify the important journals associated with your field of study within your institution's collections, and look through the last three years of published and peer-reviewed articles.

AI-assisted approach

You still need the first two steps – AI does not replace your discipline-centric human judgement; it is a tool that complements your subject knowledge and allows you time-saving innovations.

Steps 1 and 2 will allow you to establish credible journals to find good seed articles to train an AI algorithm that works for your subject. Training them on a poorly researched or off-topic article will cause your search to take you further away from good articles.

Below is a summary of AI research tools for academic research purposes. You can find out more by watching the videos on the right-hand side of the page.

Connected Papers	Creates a literature map based off a research question or topic Allows you to see how academic papers are connected to each other through a visual graph Useful for getting an overview of a new academic field Or creating a bibliography for a thesis Free
Consensus	Ask a research question by using crafted prompts After asking your research question, Consensus will give you a summary of the top 5-10 pages relevant to your question It will give you the consensus of the scientific community, and the papers it used to arrive at this conclusion Trained on Semantic Scholar 5 free questions per day
Elicit	Elicit is a research assistant that searches by semantic similarity, so you can type in your research question without the need for perfect keywords. It will suggest a better structured research question It summarizes articles based on your research question not just quoting the abstract You can seed or like relevant articles There is a long list of columns you can add to each article, such as research gap, limitations, PICO etc 4000 free uses
EvidenceHunt	Search for EDM (evidence-based medicine), clinical trials, or certain drugs using either simple search terms, medical terms or a custom PubMed query Users can subscribe to e-alerts based off their subject of interest Designed to answer clinical questions quickly Free
Explain Paper	Upload open-source journal articles on unfamiliar or difficult topics Highlight difficult paragraphs and receive easy to understand explanations Or get a summary of an entire journal article Free
Inciteful	Based off one seed paper, this paper-discovery tool will build a list and graphs based off citations The list includes similar papers, top journals, top institutions, top authors, top-ranking articles, and up and coming research The literature connector function is intended for interdisciplinary scholars and shows how two papers are connected through literature Free
Lateral IO	Lateral is a repository for theming and organizing a literature review list By using keywords, it is possible to search and theme all papers added at once Lateral can make suggestions for other themes It will keep track of where in each paper the keywords or themes appear Keeps track of citations and can be exported as a document to use in drafting a literature review Free
Open Knowledge Maps	A clustering visual search engine for scientific literature Uses semantic searching Searches either PubMed or BASE Free
ResearchRabbit	Is a citation-based mapping tool Generates similar articles based on a single seed article Allows you to see the network of papers connected to a single article Allows you to create a repository of papers which are sharable Free
SciSpace	Similar to Elicit, uses a similar interface and semantic search engine Has a co-pilot AI assistant allowing users to interact with individual papers You can create a library of documents to interact with or create a literature review list There is a AI writing assistant in SciSpace that works in a similar way to Grammarly’s AI writing assistant, use of this function violates Wintec Academic Integrity rules. Your writing must be done by you, not using an AI writing assistant. Free

Awesome AI tools for research

ResearchRabbit

Science Grad School Coach. (2022, November 1). How to Create a Literature Review Outline with Research Rabbit || Research Rabbit Tutorial [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2ygJv4lpWo

Lateral

Lateral. (2021, May 28). Welcome to Lateral! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J2ZTNEgAg0

Elicit

BU Cares (2023, January 28). How to use AI for research: Elicit.org for writing a literature review [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy2myE76ZfY&t=2s

Consensus

Consensus. (2022, September 7). Consensus - Product Hunt Beta Launch Demo [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_xxFEO8Hws&t=2s

Open Knowledge Maps

Gray Man Concepts. (2021, March 11). How to use Open Knowledge Maps (open source intelligence, OSINT tools) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIiw0GlJ5T0