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LITERATURE REVIEW SOFTWARE FOR BETTER RESEARCH

literature review research assistant

“This tool really helped me to create good bibtex references for my research papers”

Ali Mohammed-Djafari

Director of Research at LSS-CNRS, France

“Any researcher could use it! The paper recommendations are great for anyone and everyone”

Swansea University, Wales

“As a student just venturing into the world of lit reviews, this is a tool that is outstanding and helping me find deeper results for my work.”

Franklin Jeffers

South Oregon University, USA

“One of the 3 most promising tools that (1) do not solely rely on keywords, (2) does nice visualizations, (3) is easy to use”

Singapore Management University

“Incredibly useful tool to get to know more literature, and to gain insight in existing research”

KU Leuven, Belgium

“Seeing my literature list as a network enhances my thinking process!”

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

“I can’t live without you anymore! I also recommend you to my students.”

Professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong

“This has helped me so much in researching the literature. Currently, I am beginning to investigate new fields and this has helped me hugely”

Aran Warren

Canterbury University, NZ

“It's nice to get a quick overview of related literature. Really easy to use, and it helps getting on top of the often complicated structures of referencing”

Christoph Ludwig

Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

“Litmaps is extremely helpful with my research. It helps me organize each one of my projects and see how they relate to each other, as well as to keep up to date on publications done in my field”

Daniel Fuller

Clarkson University, USA

“Litmaps is a game changer for finding novel literature... it has been invaluable for my productivity.... I also got my PhD student to use it and they also found it invaluable, finding several gaps they missed”

Varun Venkatesh

Austin Health, Australia

literature review research assistant

Academia Insider

AI Tools To Automate Your Literature Review: Which To Use?

Researching and writing outa literature review can be a daunting task, but AI-powered tools like Semantic Scholar, Research Rabbit, and Scite are revolutionising this process.

These tools, leveraging artificial intelligence, automate the arduous task of sifting through mountains of academic papers, extracting key information, and summarizing relevant research.

In this article, lets explore how AI research assistants and advanced search engines streamline the literature review process, making it faster, more efficient, and thorough for conducting scientific research. Discover the best AI tools to transform your literature review work. 

Why Use AI Tools To Write Literature Review?

The vast sea of academic papers can be daunting. This is where AI tools like ChatGPT, Semantic Scholar, and Research Rabbit become indispensable.

literature review research assistant

AI tools for literature review are adept at sifting through millions of papers across various databases like PubMed and Google Scholar. They use AI algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) to identify relevant research articles, providing a summary of key information.

Some AI-powered research assistant such as Scite, uses AI to scan through research data, offering insights into the supporting or contrasting evidence within peer-reviewed papers. This can be a valuable tool for finding specific details in a systematic literature review.

These tools also streamline the literature search by automating the process of citation and reference management. Tools like Connected Papers and Research Rabbit are adept at evaluating and summarizing relevant academic papers, saving you time and effort.

They can extract key information from PDF documents and research articles, making it fast and easy to organize your findings.

AI-powered tools for literature review also help in creating a thorough literature search, essential for:

  • Systematic literature reviews
  • Meta-analyses, and
  • Identifying research gap.

They can elicit information from a variety of sources, providing a comprehensive view of your research question. This approach ensures that your literature review is not only rich in content but also diverse in perspectives.

Best AI Tools To Write Literature Review

If you are looking at exploring AI tools to help you write literature review, consider these instead. They are revolutionizing the way literature reviews are conducted:

Connected Papers

As the name suggests, Connected Papers focuses on showing how various academic papers are interconnected. This generative AI tool helps you visualize the research landscape around your topic, making it easier to:

  • Identify key papers,
  • Identify potential gaps in your literature review, and
  • Understand emerging trends in scientific research.

While not a traditional literature review tool, ChatGPT is revolutionising academic research by offering prompt-based assistance.

This chatbot-like AI tool can help automate parts of the literature review process, such as generating research questions or providing quick summaries of complex topics.

ChatGPT’s AI-driven insights can be a valuable starting point for deeper exploration into specific research areas. The key is to provide it with the right input, and then to give the right prompts.

Research Rabbit

This tool uses AI to scan a variety of sources, including peer-reviewed research data. It’s particularly useful for conducting systematic literature reviews, as it can evaluate and summarize relevant academic papers, highlighting supporting or contrasting evidence.

literature review research assistant

Its key features include mapping out connections between research papers, identifying key papers in a research area, and helping to understand how various research topics are interconnected.

Research Rabbit also excels in reference management, a vital component of academic writing.

Scite is an innovative tool that uses AI technologies to provide a new layer of insight into scientific literature.

It evaluates the credibility of research by analyzing citation contexts, helping you to identify the most impactful and relevant papers for your research question.

Scite’s most distinctive feature is its Smart Citations. Unlike traditional citations that merely count how often a paper is cited, Smart Citations provide context by showing how a paper has been cited. This means that for each citation, Scite shows you the other relevant papers that:

  • Contrasts, or
  • Mentioning evidence for the claims made in the original paper. 

As a result, Scite is invaluable for conducting thorough literature reviews, especially for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Semantic Scholar

This AI-powered research assistant stands out in its ability to sift through vast databases like PubMed and Google Scholar.

It uses advanced natural language processing (NLP) and AI algorithms to extract key information from millions of academic papers, offering concise summaries and identifying relevant research articles.

What sets Semantic Scholar apart is its AI algorithms. It analyses millions of academic publications, extracting key information such as:

  • Figures, 
  • Tables, as well as 
  • Contextual relevance of each paper.

This enables the tool to provide highly relevant search results, summaries, and insights that are tailored to your specific interests and research needs.

What To Watch Out For When Writing Literature Review With AI Tools?

When you’re writing a literature review with AI tools, you’re stepping into a world where technology meets academic rigor. To ensure they balance each other out, by watching over these details as you use AI when researching:

Bias  

AI algorithms, including those used in literature search tools, can inherit biases from their training data.

This might skew the search results towards more popular or frequently cited papers, potentially overlooking lesser-known yet significant research.

Ensure you’re accessing a variety of sources to maintain a balanced perspective. When possible, always look into newer papers on your research area, as these may not have been discovered by your AI tool yet.

Citation Accuracy

While tools like Scite provide advanced citation analysis, the accuracy of AI in identifying and interpreting citations is not infallible.

literature review research assistant

Always verify the citations and references manually, especially when dealing with complex literature or less digitised sources.

You can also use multiple AI tools to check for citation accuracy. For example, rather than simply relying on Scite, you can also use other reference management softwares like: 

  • Refworks, or

Contextual Understanding

AI tools, efficient as they are, might not fully grasp the nuanced context of your research question.

Tools like ChatGPT and Semantic Scholar provide summaries and identify relevant papers using natural language processing (NLP), but they may not always align perfectly with your specific research focus.

Always double-check that the AI’s interpretation matches your intended research angle. This means actually spending time to read articles within the research area, and become familiar with it. 

Depth of Analysis

AI tools can automate the initial stages of your literature review by quickly sifting through databases like PubMed and Google Scholar to find relevant papers.

However, they might not evaluate the depth and subtlety of arguments in academic writing as thoroughly as a human researcher would.

It’s crucial to supplement AI findings with your own detailed analysis. This means you should not rely on AI completely, but to actually roll up your sleeves and work on the analysis yourself as well.

Over-reliance on AI

There’s a temptation to overly rely on AI for streamlining every aspect of the literature review process.

literature review research assistant

Remember, AI is a tool to assist, not replace, your critical thinking and scholarly diligence.

Use AI to enhance your workflow but maintain an active role in evaluating and synthesising research data. See AI as a tool, not your replacement. You need to be there to pilot the AI tool, to ensure it is doing its job properly.

AI Tools For Literature Review: Keep Up With Times

Leveraging AI tools for your literature review is a game-changer. Tools like Semantic Scholar, Research Rabbit, and Scite, powered by advanced AI algorithms, not only automate the search for relevant papers but also provide critical summaries and evaluations.

They enhance the literature review process in academic research, making it more efficient and comprehensive.

As AI continues to evolve, these tools become indispensable for researchers, helping to streamline workflows, organize findings, and extract key insights from a vast array of scientific literature with unparalleled ease and speed.

literature review research assistant

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.

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literature review research assistant

RAxter is now Enago Read! Enjoy the same licensing and pricing with enhanced capabilities. No action required for existing customers.

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From Surface-Level Exploration to Critical Reading - All in one Place!

Fine-tune your literature search.

Our AI-powered reading assistant saves time spent on the exploration of relevant resources and allows you to focus more on reading.

Select phrases or specific sections and explore more research papers related to the core aspects of your selections. Pin the useful ones for future references.

Our platform brings you the latest research related to your and project work.

Speed up your literature review

Quickly generate a summary of key sections of any paper with our summarizer.

Make informed decisions about which papers are relevant, and where to invest your time in further reading.

Get key insights from the paper, quickly comprehend the paper’s unique approach, and recall the key points.

Bring order to your research projects

Organize your reading lists into different projects and maintain the context of your research.

Quickly sort items into collections and tag or filter them according to keywords and color codes.

Experience the power of sharing by finding all the shared literature at one place.

Decode papers effortlessly for faster comprehension

Highlight what is important so that you can retrieve it faster next time.

Select any text in the paper and ask Copilot to explain it to help you get a deeper understanding.

Ask questions and follow-ups from AI-powered Copilot.

Collaborate to read with your team, professors, or students

Share and discuss literature and drafts with your study group, colleagues, experts, and advisors. Recommend valuable resources and help each other for better understanding.

Work in shared projects efficiently and improve visibility within your study group or lab members.

Keep track of your team's progress by being constantly connected and engaging in active knowledge transfer by requesting full access to relevant papers and drafts.

Find papers from across the world's largest repositories

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Elicit is an AI assistant for researchers and academics, incubated at Ought and now running as an independent public benefit corporation.

The plan for Elicit

Our goal is to automate and scale open-ended reasoning with language models—synthesizing evidence and arguments, designing research plans, and evaluating interventions.

We started with automating literature reviews because:

  • There is a rich discipline around synthesizing literature.
  • Understanding the status quo is necessary to expand the frontier.
  • Researchers most want help with literature review.

Today, Elicit users find academic papers, ask questions about them, and summarize their findings.

After literature review, Elicit will expand to other research tasks (evaluating project directions, decomposing research questions, augmented reading), then beyond research (supporting organizational planning, individual decision-making).

Read more about the plan for Elicit .

The case for Elicit

Robust, well-reasoned research is the bottleneck for many impactful interventions and decisions. Language models can address this bottleneck by reading and evaluating more research, evidence, and reasoning steps than humanly possible.

Like programming languages provide building blocks for exact computation, language models provide the building blocks of cognitive work (e.g., search, extraction, classification, summarization). Elicit will study researchers, identify and build out these blocks, then surface them to users so that they can string them together and automate their cognitive workflows over time.

If Elicit succeeds, this will make researchers vastly more productive and accurate. It will also help non-experts apply good research and reasoning practices when discovering, consuming, and generating information.

Elicit's architecture is based on supervising reasoning processes, not outcomes . While this architecture is being built in the context of a research assistant, we expect to learn how to make machine learning useful for open-ended questions more broadly (differential capabilities). In the long run, process-based architectures can avoid some alignment risks posed by end-to-end optimization (alignment).

  • Differential capabilities: End-to-end training based on outcomes doesn't work well for exceeding human capability at questions that don't have easily measurable outcomes, questions like "Does this plan have problematic long-term consequences?". If we want AI to be as helpful for such long-horizon tasks as it is for "Did this chat interaction persuade them to click 'buy'?", we need a paradigm that isn't based on end-to-end training.
  • Alignment: As AI becomes more powerful, AI systems trained end-to-end are incentivized to game their reward metrics. The compositional approach evaluates process instead of outcome, thus providing a more robust alternative.

Read more about the case for process-based architectures .

Infrastructure for Elicit

To demonstrate how to build tools like Elicit in a process-based way, we developed the Interactive Composition Explorer (ICE), an open-source Python library for compositional language model programs.

A language model execution trace visualized in ICE

To learn how to use ICE, read the Factored Cognition Primer , an online tutorial that walks you through solving complex reasoning problems using task decomposition.

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Elicit harnesses AI to simplify literature review, finding relevant papers, summarizing key findings, and automating research workflows effectively

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About elicit, elicit: transforming academic research with ai-powered literature review.

In the realm of academic research, literature review is a critical but time-consuming task. Elicit is an innovative AI research assistant that aims to revolutionize the research process by automating literature review and other research workflows.

The Power of Elicit

Built on advanced language models like GPT-3, Elicit goes beyond simple keyword searches to find relevant papers based on semantic similarity. This allows researchers to discover pertinent articles even without a perfect keyword match. Elicit also generates customized summaries of abstracts, highlighting key information that aligns with the user's query. By leveraging AI, Elicit effectively automates parts of the research process, providing a significant advantage to researchers.

Research Workflows Made Easy

Elicit is not just limited to literature review. The platform offers various research tasks, including brainstorming, summarization, and text classification. These tools provide a comprehensive solution for researchers in academia, independent organizations, or working independently. Elicit's users have found success in finding papers to cite, defining research directions, and even achieving high scores on exams.

Key Benefits of Elicit

  • Semantic Similarity: Discover relevant papers beyond keyword matching, broadening your research scope.
  • Customized Summaries: Get personalized summaries of abstracts based on your query, saving time and effort.
  • Citation Analysis: Automatically explore citation graphs to find more relevant papers and understand their impact.
  • Flexible Filtering: Customize search results by study type, publication date, or other criteria to hone in on the most pertinent papers.
  • Export and Integration: Save your work and export it in various formats for easy integration into reference managers like Zotero.

Limitations to Consider

While Elicit is a powerful tool, it is essential to understand its limitations. AI-generated content is not always 100% accurate, and the quality of research papers can vary. Elicit cannot evaluate the trustworthiness of individual papers, so users should apply their critical thinking skills when reviewing results.

Revolutionizing Research with Elicit

Elicit is poised to change the way researchers approach literature review and related tasks. By harnessing AI technology to automate parts of the research process, Elicit provides invaluable support for researchers across various domains, saving time and effort while expanding the reach of their academic inquiry.

Elicit Reviews

  • AI research assistant
  • literature review
  • academic research
  • citation analysis
  • paper summarization
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Elicit vs. SciSpace: AI research assistant for effortless literature review

Madalsa

Table of Contents

Quick snapshot: This article entails a high-level comparison of the two best AI tools that helps researchers streamline the literature review process — Elicit AI research assistant and SciSpace literature review.  

In academics, the challenges faced by researchers and Ph.D. students are multifaceted.

The task of sifting through vast publications, finding relevant articles, and then comparing them can be overwhelming.

Moreover, to ensure the quality of academic work, it's crucial to deep dive into these articles, extract key information, and obtain specific paper summaries. This rigorous process is termed as a ' literature review ,' which is notably time-consuming.

Thankfully, AI tools like Elicit and SciSpace are here to simplify this journey!

Research assistants such as Elicit AI and SciSpace are certainly revolutionizing the literature review process, making it more efficient and accurate for users. How?

These AI-powered tools work based on large language models to simplify the research tasks. You can automate research workflows and find relevant articles, extract key information, brainstorm ideas, get paper specific summary, and much more!

Without further ado, let's delve deep into these two AI tools — Elicit AI and SciSpace Literature review and explore their benefits and features in detail.

literature review research assistant

What is Elicit (The AI Research Assistant)?

Elicit AI leverages advanced LLMs ( Large Language Models ) to help you navigate and understand relevant research articles in-depth.

It harnesses the power of large language models to automate research workflows, focusing on open-ended reasoning.

By supervising reasoning processes rather than outcomes, it aims to scale literature reviews and streamline research tasks. This compositional approach, developed using the Interactive Composition Explorer (ICE), ensures robust and well-reasoned research outcomes.

Elicit-AI-Research-Assistant

AI research assistant Elicit streamlines the process of finding, summarizing, and understanding research articles. You can extract key information, abstract summary, and paper-specific insights from multiple papers on a single screen.

How to search on Elicit?

All you have to do is upload a PDF or search for a topic or a keyword (regardless of the perfect keyword match).

Elicit AI will curate the top-most relevant papers based on the search terms. However, you can't find relevant articles using the DOI link on Elicit.

This AI tool aims to make the literature review more efficient, accurate, and insightful, reducing the time and effort traditionally required to stay updated with the latest studies and findings in a particular field.

What is SciSpace Literature Review?

SciSpace employs advanced LLMs (Large Language Models) to simplify researchers' workflows like literature reviews and understanding confused and complex academic texts.

SciSpace-Literature-Review

It also helps you automate research workflows and assists you in finding relevant papers even without perfect keyword match or research questions.

SciSpace highlights the main conclusions, summarize takeaways, TL;DR, methodologies, and more in an easy-to-read table format.

How to find relevant papers on SciSpace?

All you have to do is enter the keyword or any research question on the search tab and get insights from the top 5 most relevant papers based on your query. Then, you can analyze the results, add, or remove papers and even customize the table based on your research needs.

Similar to Elicit AI, SciSpace ensures that you can efficiently find the most relevant journal articles, accelerating your research process and improving the quality of your literature review and other research tasks.

Learn more about SciSpace Literature review workspace .

Elicit AI Vs. SciSpace literature review — Head-to-Head comparison

Here we'll take a side-by-side look at the SciSpace Literature review and AI research assistant Elicit to shed light on their features.

Let's unveil what each brings to the table to automate research workflows and other research tasks.

Language Support

For non-English-speaking researchers, while Elicit AI is primarily English-focused, SciSpace helps you identify and interact with relevant papers in 75+ languages, ensuring a better understanding of research papers in a language of your choice!

Ease of access

While Elicit AI requires you to sign up before exploring its features, SciSpace offers a more open approach.

With SciSpace, you can explore the tool without the initial commitment of signing up, providing a seamless introduction to its capabilities and allowing you to experience its benefits.

Research paper analysis

AI research assistant Elicit allows you to search or upload PDFs (full text), then provides insights from the top 4 papers with citations. It also generates concise paper summaries, allowing you to grasp the core idea of the paper.

In contrast, SciSpace provides high-level insights from the top papers backed by citations for every query or PDF. It also provides paper-specific summaries, insights, conclusions, TL;DR, and more for each paper that appears after the search. The best part? With the integration of SciSpace Copilot AI, you have a tool adept at answering questions about any specific paper. This not only provides you with a quick overview summary but also empowers you to extract key information, ensuring you always find relevant papers with ease.

Literature repository

Elicit AI locates papers related to specific research topics across multiple databases.  In contrast, SciSpace provides access to a staggering repository of more than 270+ million research papers.

These exhaustive repositories ensure that you have unparalleled access to academic literature, reducing the chances of missing pivotal studies.

Customization

Elicit offers advanced search filters that allow you to narrow down results, ensuring a targeted approach to literature review. You can filter papers by specifying keywords, publishing dates, and study types.

Similarly, SciSpace refines results based on criteria such as journal publication type, year, open access, or PDF.

Both Elicit AI and SciSpace offer the ability to extract key information from specific sections of a paper, ensuring precision in finding highly relevant research papers.

Ask in-depth questions about the research papers

With the integration of SciSpace Copilot AI, you have a tool adept at answering questions about any specific paper using large language models. This not only provides you with a quick overview summary but also empowers you to extract key information, ensuring you always find relevant papers with ease.

The main focus of this AI tool is to transform the research review process into an interactive experience. You can ask follow-up questions to academic journals, get in-depth insights from the papers and understand them better.

How to use SciSpace Copilot , our AI research assistant to chat with your PDF?

Similarly, Elicit AI also allows you to dig deeper, find relevant papers and get more insights with the help of an AI research assistant bot.

Export and Save options

While Elicit supports both BIB file, and CSV file export, SciSpace helps you export search results only as a CSV file. Additionally, researchers can save search settings, ensuring a seamless continuation of literature reviews in future sessions.

Wrapping up the analysis of Elicit AI vs. SciSpace

Undoubtedly, AI research assistant Elicit and SciSpace have proven to be the best literature review tools , offering unique features to facilitate the literature review process. These tools excel with their AI-driven paper analysis across advanced bibliography repositories making the research-finding process more efficient.

However, SciSpace stands out with its multi-language support and Copilot interactive AI assistant by answering questions in 75+ languages!

But, wait, the best way to gauge the right fit is to experience them firsthand.

So, why not explore these cutting-edge AI tools and see the difference they can make in your research workflow?

Start with your query now — SciSpace Literature review .  

1. What is elicit ai?

Elicit AI assists researchers in efficiently navigating academic literature, offering direct access to relevant studies and insights. Thus, streamlining the literature review process.

2. What tool is useful for literature review?

Both Elicit and SciSpace are useful tools for conducting literature reviews, with each offering unique features to aid researchers.

3. What is similar to elicit AI?

SciSpace is a tool similar to Elicit AI, designed to assist in conducting systematic literature reviews.

4. Which AI tool is best for literature review?

SciSpace is an ultimate research assistant for effortless literature review process.

5. How to use Elicit for literature review?

To use Elicit for literature review, You have to sign up. After, you can input your research query, and the tool would then locate research papers and provide insights from relevant academic papers.

6. What is the best AI for academic research?

Elicit and SciSpace are among the top AI tools for academic research, each offering features such as finding relevant research papers and understanding them. Each tool is tailored to streamline your research process.

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Your all in one AI-powered Reading Assistant

A Reading Space to Ideate, Create Knowledge, & Collaborate on Your Research

  • Smartly organize your research
  • Receive recommendations that can not be ignored
  • Collaborate with your team to read, discuss, and share knowledge

image

From Surface-Level Exploration to Critical Reading - All at One Place!

Fine-tune your literature search.

Our AI-powered reading assistant saves time spent on the exploration of relevant resources and allows you to focus more on reading.

Select phrases or specific sections and explore more research papers related to the core aspects of your selections. Pin the useful ones for future references.

Our platform brings you the latest research news, online courses, and articles from magazines/blogs related to your research interests and project work.

Speed up your literature review

Quickly generate a summary of key sections of any paper with our summarizer.

Make informed decisions about which papers are relevant, and where to invest your time in further reading.

Get key insights from the paper, quickly comprehend the paper’s unique approach, and recall the key points.

Bring order to your research projects

Organize your reading lists into different projects and maintain the context of your research.

Quickly sort items into collections and tag or filter them according to keywords and color codes.

Experience the power of sharing by finding all the shared literature at one place

Decode papers effortlessly for faster comprehension

Highlight what is important so that you can retrieve it faster next time

Find Wikipedia explanations for any selected word or phrase

Save time in finding similar ideas across your projects

Collaborate to read with your team, professors, or students

Share and discuss literature and drafts with your study group, colleagues, experts, and advisors. Recommend valuable resources and help each other for better understanding.

Work in shared projects efficiently and improve visibility within your study group or lab members.

Keep track of your team's progress by being constantly connected and engaging in active knowledge transfer by requesting full access to relevant papers and drafts.

Find Papers From Across the World's Largest Repositories

client

Testimonials

Privacy and security of your research data are integral to our mission..

Rax privacy policy

Everything you add or create on Enago Read is private by default. It is visible only if and when you share it with other users.

Copyright

You can put Creative Commons license on original drafts to protect your IP. For shared files, Enago Read always maintains a copy in case of deletion by collaborators or revoked access.

Security

We use state-of-the-art security protocols and algorithms including MD5 Encryption, SSL, and HTTPS to secure your data.

SoftwareRally Home

Elicit Ai: Research Assistant for Literature Review

Elicit ai

Elicit AI is a beacon of innovation which is revolutionizing the way we delve into the depths of research. Imagine having a brilliant research assistant at your side who is tirelessly working to make your academic journey smoother and more efficient. 

Elicit AI is that trusty companion, powered by the magic of artificial intelligence. It’s your key to unlock a treasure trove of information, save you precious time, and enhance the quality of your research.

Elicit AI is developed by the renowned nonprofit machine learning research lab Ought. It is your modern-day research superhero. Whether you’re a seasoned scientist or a budding scholar, Elicit AI caters to your research needs. This tool is all about simplifying your journey from the burdensome task of literature reviews to the intricate art of text classification.

Forget about those frustrating keyword hunts – it autonomously identifies the top papers in your field. It’s like having an ultra-efficient librarian who brings you the most relevant books without any fuss. But Elicit AI doesn’t stop there; it goes on to summarize these papers and gives you quick access to their essence in a language you’ll understand even before your second cup of coffee.

Not only does Elicit AI automate the search but it also serves as your data wizard. It extracts vital information from papers, such as interventions, outcomes, and more. It’s like having a diligent research assistant who dissects the data and presents it to you in a neatly organized fashion. Plus, with its text classification powers it ensures your findings are not just scattered, but smartly categorized.

So let’s dive into a future where research is smarter, faster, and more accessible with Elicit AI by your side.

What is Elicit Ai?

Elicit AI is a powerful artificial intelligence tool designed to assist researchers in various fields by automating and streamlining the research process. Developed by Ought, a nonprofit machine learning research lab, Elicit AI leverages advanced language models, like GPT-3 , to perform a range of research-related tasks.

Here’s what Elicit AI can do:

  • Literature Review Automation: Elicit AI can quickly search for and review academic papers without requiring exact keyword matches. It identifies top papers in a given research area and makes literature reviews much more efficient.
  • Summarization: It generates concise and tailored summaries of research papers and help researchers quickly understand the most crucial information.
  • Information Extraction: Elicit AI can extract key data from papers, such as intervention details, outcomes, participant numbers, population summaries, and more. This extracted data can be organized into a research matrix for easy analysis.
  • Text Classification: Beyond summarization and extraction, it offers text classification capabilities which help researchers categorize and better understand their findings.

Elicit AI is a versatile tool with applications across numerous research domains including biomedicine, social sciences, and more. It significantly accelerates the literature review process, enhances research quality, and supports researchers, even those who may not be experts in the field.

Elicit Ai Brief overview

Developed By: Ought research lab

Support: [email protected]

Used for: Literature research

Database: 200 Million database

Pricing: Credit-based

How to use Elicit Ai?

Time needed:  10 minutes

Using Elicit AI is a straightforward process. Follow these steps to make the most of this powerful research assistant :

Start by visiting the Elicit AI website. You can access the benefits of this tool for free because you will get 5000 credits to use.

Sign up to use this tool and your free credits. You can use your email id or any of your google accounts to sign up.

On the Elicit AI platform, you’ll be prompted to ask a research question. This is the starting point for your research. Make your question clear and specific. You can find research papers, upload pdf to extract data and create a list of researches.

Elicit AI will present you with a list of academic papers related to your research question. The results are displayed in an easy-to-read table and features paper titles, authors, journal details, publication years, citation numbers, and DOI links.

You can add custom columns to your table to extract specific information from the papers, such as intervention details, outcomes, number of participants, and more. This customization can help you organize your research data more effectively.

If needed, you can export the search results as CSV or BibTeX files. This is handy for saving and sharing your findings.

After reviewing the summarized information, you can click on a paper’s title to view more details, including the abstract and other important information. This step allows you to go deeper into the papers you find interesting.

Elicit AI provides features for summarizing papers and text classification. You can use these to enhance your understanding and categorization of the papers you find.

If you need further information or have specific questions about a paper, Elicit AI can help. Simply ask for more details, and the tool will provide the information you need.

Remember that Elicit AI aims to streamline the research process and improve the efficiency of your literature reviews. While it’s a powerful tool, it’s also a good practice to cross-verify the information extracted and ensure its accuracy, especially if you plan to use it for academic or research purposes.

Elicit AI emerges as a game-changer for researchers across various domains. Its ability to harness the power of advanced language models to automate literature reviews, extract critical information, and provide concise summaries significantly enhances the research process.

Elicit AI has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach academic research and enables both experts and non-experts to discover and apply research findings more efficiently. Its customization options and text classification features further contribute to its appeal that makes it a valuable tool for the modern researcher seeking to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of academia.

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Elicit Ai: Research Assistant for Literature Review

E-Hallpass: Everything you should know

Illustrator Retype (Beta) Feature: Everything you should know

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AI Mock-up feature in Adobe Illustrator (Beta)

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literature review research assistant

Analyze research papers at superhuman speed

Search for research papers, get one sentence abstract summaries, select relevant papers and search for more like them, extract details from papers into an organized table.

literature review research assistant

Find themes and concepts across many papers

Don't just take our word for it.

literature review research assistant

Tons of features to speed up your research

Upload your own pdfs, orient with a quick summary, view sources for every answer, ask questions to papers, research for the machine intelligence age, pick a plan that's right for you, get in touch, enterprise and institutions, custom pricing, common questions. great answers., how do researchers use elicit.

Over 800,000 researchers have tried Elicit already. Researchers commonly use Elicit to:

  • Speed up literature review
  • Find papers they couldn’t find elsewhere
  • Automate systematic reviews and meta-analyses
  • Learn about a new domain

Elicit tends to work best for empirical domains that involve experiments and concrete results. This type of research is common in biomedicine and machine learning.

What is Elicit not a good fit for?

Elicit does not currently answer questions or surface information that is not written about in an academic paper. It tends to work less well for identifying facts (e.g. “How many cars were sold in Malaysia last year?”) and theoretical or non-empirical domains.

What types of data can Elicit search over?

Elicit searches across 200 million academic papers from the Semantic Scholar corpus, which covers all academic disciplines. When you extract data from papers in Elicit, Elicit will use the full text if available or the abstract if not.

How accurate are the answers in Elicit?

A good rule of thumb is to assume that around 90% of the information you see in Elicit is accurate. While we do our best to increase accuracy without skyrocketing costs, it’s very important for you to check the work in Elicit closely. We try to make this easier for you by identifying all of the sources for information generated with language models.

What is Elicit Plus?

Elicit Plus is Elicit's subscription offering, which comes with a set of features, as well as monthly credits. On Elicit Plus, you may use up to 12,000 credits a month. Unused monthly credits do not carry forward into the next month. Plus subscriptions auto-renew every month.

What are credits?

Elicit uses a credit system to pay for the costs of running our app. When you run workflows and add columns to tables it will cost you credits. When you sign up you get 5,000 credits to use. Once those run out, you'll need to subscribe to Elicit Plus to get more. Credits are non-transferable.

How can you get in contact with the team?

Please email us at [email protected] or post in our Slack community if you have feedback or general comments! We log and incorporate all user comments. If you have a problem, please email [email protected] and we will try to help you as soon as possible.

What happens to papers uploaded to Elicit?

When you upload papers to analyze in Elicit, those papers will remain private to you and will not be shared with anyone else.

How accurate is Elicit?

Training our models on specific tasks, searching over academic papers, making it easy to double-check answers, save time, think more. try elicit for free..

  • Research Guides
  • University Libraries

AI-Based Literature Review Tools

  • Dialogues: Insightful Facts
  • How to Craft Prompts
  • Plugins / Extensions for AI-powered Searches
  • Cite ChatGPT in APA / MLA
  • AI and Plagiarism
  • ChatGPT & Higher Education
  • Author Profile

Selected AI-Based Literature Review Tools

Updates: See news or release of AI (Beta) across various academic research databases including Web of Science , Scopus , Ebsco , ProQues t, OVID , Dimensions , JStor , Westlaw , and LexisNexis . ********* ********** ********** ********** **********   

Disclaimer: TAMU libraries do not have subscription access to the AI-powered tools listed below the divider line. The guide serves solely as an informational resource. It is recommended that you assess these tools and their usage methodologies independently. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SEMANTIC SCHOLAR

  • SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE SEARCH ENGINE - finding semantically similar research papers.
  • " A free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature."  <https://www.semanticscholar.org/>. But login is required in order to use all functions.
  • Over 200 millions of papers from all fields of science, the data of which has also served as a wellspring for the development of other AI-driven tools.

The 4000+ results can be sorted by Fields of Study, Date Range, Author, Journals & Conferences

Save the papers in your Library folder. The Research Feeds will recommend similar papers based on the items saved.

Example - SERVQUAL: A multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality Total Citations: 22,438   [Note: these numbers were gathered when this guide was created] Highly Influential Citations 2,001 Background Citations 6,109 Methods Citations 3,273  Results Citations 385

Semantic Reader

TLDRs (Too Long; Didn't Read) Try this example . Press the pen icon to reveal the highlighted key points . TLDRs "are super-short summaries of the main objective and results of a scientific paper generated using expert background knowledge and the latest GPT-3 style NLP techniques. This new feature is available in beta for nearly 60 million papers in computer science, biology, and medicine..." < https://www.semanticscholar.org/product/tldr>

  • AI-POWERED RESEARCH ASSISTANT - finding papers, filtering study types, automating research flow, brainstorming, summarizing and more.
  • " Elicit is a research assistant using language models like GPT-3 to automate parts of researchers’ workflows. Currently, the main workflow in Elicit is Literature Review. If you ask a question, Elicit will show relevant papers and summaries of key information about those papers in an easy-to-use table."   <https://elicit.org/faq#what-is-elicit.>; Find answers from 175 million papers. FAQS
  • Example - How do mental health interventions vary by age group?    /   Fish oil and depression Results: [Login required] (1) Summary of top 4 papers > Paper #1 - #4 with Title, abstract, citations, DOI, and pdf (2) Table view: Abstract / Interventions / Outcomes measured / Number of participants (3) Relevant studies and citations. (4) Click on Search for Paper Information to find - Metadata about Sources ( SJR etc.) >Population ( age etc.) >Intervention ( duration etc.) > Results ( outcome, limitations etc.) and > Methodology (detailed study design etc.) (5) Export as BIB or CSV
  • How to Search / Extract Data / List of Concept Search -Enter a research question >Workflow: Searching > Summarizing 8 papers> A summary of 4 top papers > Final answers. Each result will show its citation counts, DOI, and a full-text link to Semantic Scholar website for more information such as background citations, methods citation, related papers and more. - List of Concepts search - e.g. adult learning motivation . The results will present a list the related concepts. - Extract data from a pdf file - Upload a paper and let Elicit extract data for you.
  • Export Results - Various ways to export results.
  • How to Cite - Includes the elicit.org URL in the citation, for example: Ought; Elicit: The AI Research Assistant; https://elicit.org; accessed xxxx/xx/xx

CONSENSUS.APP

ACADEMIC SEARCH ENGINE- using AI to find insights in research papers.

"We are a search engine that is designed to accept research questions, find relevant answers within research papers, and synthesize the results using the same language model technology." <https://consensus.app/home/blog/maximize-your-consensus-experience-with-these-best-practices/>

  • Example - Does the death penalty reduce the crime?   /  Fish oil and depression  /    (1) Extracted & aggregated findings from relevant papers. (2) Results may include AIMS, DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS, FINDINGS or other methodological or report components. (3) Summaries and Full Text
  • How to Search Direct questions - Does the death penalty reduce the crime? Relationship between two concepts - Fish oil and depression / Does X cause Y? Open-ended concepts - effects of immigration on local economics Tips and search examples from Consensus' Best Practice   
  • Synthesize (beta) / Consensus Meter When the AI recognizes certain types of research questions, this functionality may be activated. It will examine a selection of some studies and provide a summary along with a Consensus Meter illustrating their collective agreement. Try this search: Is white rice linked to diabetes? The Consensus Meter reveals the following outcomes after analyzing 10 papers: 70% indicate a positive association, 20% suggest a possible connection, and 10% indicate no link.

Prompt “ write me a paragraph about the impact of climate change on GDP with citations “

CITATIONS IN CONTEXT

Integrated with Research Solutions.

Over 1.2 billion Citation Statements and metadata from over 181 million papers suggested reference.

How does it work? - "scite uses access to full-text articles and its deep learning model to tell you, for a given publication: - how many times it was cited by others - how it was cited by others by displaying the text where the citation happened from each citing paper - whether each citation offers supporting or contrasting evidence of the cited claims in the publication of interest, or simply mention it."   <https://help.scite.ai/en-us/article/what-is-scite-1widqmr/>

EXAMPLE of seeing all citations and citation statements in one place

More information: Scite: A smart citation index that displays the context of citations and classifies their intent using deep learning  

  • GPT3.5 by OpenAI. Knowledge cutoff date is September 2021.
  • Input/ Output length - ChatGPT-3.5 allows a maximum token limit of 4096 tokens. According to ChatGPT " On average, a token in English is roughly equivalent to 4 bytes or characters. English words are typically around 5 characters long. This means that, very roughly, you could fit around 800 to 1000 English words within 4096 tokens." 
  • According to ChatGPT, the generated responses are non-deterministic by default. So if you run the searches again and get slightly or very different results, it's likely due to this factor.
  • ChatGPT may find non-existent references.
  • According to this study < https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2304/2304.06794.pdf > "ChatGPT cites the most-cited articles and journals, relying solely on Google Scholar's citation counts" within the field of environmental science.  
  • Example - "INTERVIEW WITH CHATGPT" as a Research Method & Teaching Tool Some researchers began to use this approach to obtain their research data. Try this Google Scholar search link "interview with ChatGPT"   or see two articles below: (1) Chatting about ChatGPT: how may AI and GPT impact academia and libraries? BD Lund, T Wang - Library Hi Tech News, 2023 (2) An interview with ChatGPT: discussing artificial intelligence in teaching, research, and practice , G Scaringi, M Loche - 2023  

Increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) Increased risk of premature birth Increased risk of low birth weight Increased risk of respiratory problems in newborns Increased risk of respiratory problems in infants exposed to secondhand smoke Increased risk of developing asthma and other respiratory illnesses later in life for infants exposed to secondhand smoke [Note : ChatGPT may generate non-existent references or false knowledge. To find out why Large Language Models hallucinate, check out this Wiki article: Hallucination (artificial intelligence) and this blog post -   A Gentle Introduction to Hallucinations in Large Language Models by Adrian Tam ]

Infant death Neonatal mortality (referring specifically to deaths within the first 28 days of life) Perinatal mortality (referring to deaths occurring during the period from 22 completed weeks of gestation to 7 completed days after birth) Early childhood mortality (referring to deaths occurring within the first five years of life) Child mortality (referring to deaths occurring before the age of 18) [Press the Regenerate button to get more.]

  • Example -  RELATED WORDS What are the related words of infant mortality? Neonatal mortality, Post-neonatal mortality, Stillbirths, Low birth weight, Malnutrition, Infectious diseases, Vaccination, Maternal health,  Access to healthcare, Poverty, Social inequality, Sanitation, Hygiene, Water quality, Childbirth complications, Congenital abnormalities, Birth defects, Maternal age, Under-five mortality, Child mortality, Perinatal mortality, Preterm birth, Low birth weight, Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), Maternal mortality, Postnatal care, Malnutrition, Immunization, Access to healthcare, Clean water and sanitation, Congenital anomalies, Infant health disparities, Infant mortality rate (IMR), Infant survival.  

(("Infant Death"[Mesh] OR "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome"[Mesh] OR "Infant Mortality"[Mesh] OR "Perinatal Mortality"[Mesh] OR "Neonatal Mortality"[Mesh] OR "Fetal Mortality"[Mesh] OR "Infant Death" OR "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome" OR "Infant Mortality" OR "Perinatal Mortality" OR "Neonatal Mortality" OR "Fetal Mortality") AND ("Risk Factors"[Mesh] OR "Etiology"[Mesh] OR "Prevention and Control"[Mesh] OR "Interventions"[Mesh] OR "Public Health"[Mesh] OR "Health Disparities"[Mesh] OR "Healthcare Disparities"[Mesh] OR "Poverty"[Mesh] OR "Malnutrition"[Mesh] OR "Infection"[Mesh] OR "Congenital Abnormalities"[Mesh] OR "Prematurity"[Mesh] OR "Low Birth Weight"[Mesh] OR "Maternal Education"[Mesh] OR "Maternal Health"[Mesh] OR "Risk Factors" OR "Etiology" OR "Prevention and Control" OR "Interventions" OR "Public Health" OR "Health Disparities" OR "Healthcare Disparities" OR "Poverty" OR "Malnutrition" OR "Infection" OR "Congenital Abnormalities" OR "Prematurity" OR "Low Birth Weight" OR "Maternal Education" OR "Maternal Health")) Comments and Suggestions: #1 -This search string may not work on all database platforms. For example, Medline (OVID) may not be able to run it, Medline & CINAHL (EBSCO) can run it without any problems while PubMed will run it but it will indicate which MeSH terms are not indexed. See PubMed's search History and Details under Advanced . #2 - This is just one possible combination. You may need to adjust it based on your task and the databases you are using . #3 - It might be easier if you break the task into 3 parts: ask for synonyms > ask for thesauri terms > and ask it to combine them.

Examples - DATABASE RECOMMENDATIONS Heath Science - Which databases to use to find articles on the EFFECTS OF MATERNAL SMOKING ON INFANT DEATH? PubMed: This is a database of biomedical literature from the National Library of Medicine. It includes articles from medical journals and other sources on a wide range of health-related topics. Embase: This is a database of biomedical literature that covers more international and pharmaceutical content than PubMed. It includes articles from medical journals and other sources on a wide range of health-related topics. Cochrane Library : This is a collection of databases that provides systematic reviews and meta-analyses of healthcare interventions, including interventions related to maternal smoking and infant death. Scopus: This is a multidisciplinary database that covers research from a wide range of fields, including health sciences. It includes articles from scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. Web of Science: This is a database that covers research from a wide range of fields, including health sciences. It includes articles from scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. CINAHL: This is a database of nursing and allied health literature, including articles on maternal smoking and infant death. [Note: The response above was copied and pasted directly from ChatGPT. No editing was added.] Education -- I am doing a meta-analysis on k-12 STEM education. What databases should I use? ERIC : This is a database of education research and information, including articles from journals, reports, and conference papers. It is a commonly used database for educational research. Education Source : This is a comprehensive database of education research and information, including articles from journals, books, and conference papers. Web of Science: This is a multidisciplinary database that covers research from a wide range of fields, including education. It includes articles from scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. Scopus: This is another multidisciplinary database that covers research from a wide range of fields, including education. It includes articles from scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. PsycINFO: This is a database of psychology research, including articles from journals, books, and dissertations. It can be useful for research on STEM education that includes psychological factors. Cochrane Library : This is a collection of databases that provides systematic reviews and meta-analyses of healthcare interventions including interventions related to education. [Author's note: You could also ask for the GREY LITERATURE sources related to the topic above,]

Example: ACT-AS-AN-EXPERT PROMPT Here's an alternative way to consolidate all the questions into a single consultation by using this popular Act-As-An-Expert prompt, aka, system message prompt:  I am going to conduct a systematic review on games and mathematics related to K-12 education  I want you to act as a systematic review expert . I will ask you some questions related to my research topic and you advise me on how to do it. 

[You may ask one question at a time] My first question is "which databases should I use?"  My second question is "what are the relevant subject terms, descriptors and key words?" My third question is "how to do data extraction?" ..... , .... Please note that the above prompts are merely for illustrative purposes. Actual questions may contain more specific instructions. As an example, for the first question, could you provide guidance on how to identify relevant publications? Specifically, can you provide a list of the primary databases and grey literature sources related to my topic?  

Example - GREY LITERATURE Please show me all the resources that offer grey literature for conducting research in the field of education     ERIC (Education Resources Information Center): https://eric.ed.gov/     OpenGrey: http://www.opengrey.eu/     British Education Index: https://www.ebscohost.com/academic/british-education-index     WorldCat: https://www.worldcat.org/     ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: https://www.proquest.com/products-services/pqdtglobal.html     EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service): https://ethos.bl.uk/     Institutional Repositories of universities and academic institutions (search for specific institution repositories)     American Educational Research Association (AERA): https://www.aera.net/     National Education Association (NEA): https://www.nea.org/     Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD): http://www.ascd.org/     RAND Corporation: https://www.rand.org/     National Center for Education Research (NCER): https://ies.ed.gov/ncer/     National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): https://nces.ed.gov/     European Educational Research Association (EERA): https://www.eera-ecer.de/     UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP): http://www.iiep.unesco.org/     Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD): https://www.oecd.org/education/     Education Development Center (EDC): https://www.edc.org/     National Institute for Educational Policy Research (NIER) - Japan: https://www.nier.go.jp/     Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER): https://www.acer.org/     Canadian Education Association (CEA): https://www.cea-ace.ca/ My topic is about stem education. Which grey literature databases should I use?    STEM Education Research Centre (SERC) Grey Literature Database    National STEM Education Research Repository (NSERR)    National Science Digital Library (NSDL)    STEM Education Resource Center (SERC) GrayLit Network    STEM Education Grey Literature Library

See other Comparison Examples under Bing AI.

Examples - ZERO SHOT, ONE SHOT & FEW SHOT PROMPTING for literature review See the examples on the left panel- How to Fine Tune Prompts

Bing Chat / Copilot

  • Bing Chat has become Copilot.
  • CONVERSATIONAL LLM 4.0 + SEARCH ENGINE. Connects to the Internet.
  • Three conversation modes: More Creative, More Balanced or More Precise.
  • Comparison - Prompt: My topic is about psychology. Which grey literature databases should I use? More Precise - PsycExtra, NIH Library and links to library guides, .gov and .org websites More Balanced - PsycExtra and three main research guides that mention psychology grey literature sources. More Creative- PsycExtra, LILACS, and Worldcat + definition of grey literature + suggestions on searching for professional association websites, newsletters, magazines, standards and guidelines, and other sources that may contain relevant information for your topic.
  • Some examples below were tested in Bing Chat only.  
  • Example - factors of infant mortality Infant mortality is a term that refers to the death of infants before their first birthday. The leading causes of infant mortality include birth asphyxia, pneumonia, congenital malformations, term birth complications such as abnormal presentation of the fetus umbilical cord prolapse, or prolonged labor, neonatal infection, diarrhea, malaria, measles, and malnutrition1. Many situational factors lead to infant mortality such as the pregnant woman’s level of education, environmental conditions, political infrastructure, and level of medical support1. In the United States, a primary determinant of infant mortality risk is infant birth weight with lower birth weights increasing the risk of infant mortality. The determinants of low birth weight include socioeconomic, psychological, behavioral and environmental factors2.  
  • Example: PEER REVIEWED SOURCES I need to find some peer reviewed articles about infant mortality? The answer includes 5 articles. The first one is “Causes of death and infant mortality rates among full-term births in the United States between 2010 and 2012: An observational study” by Neha Bairoliya and Günther Fink1. A click on  " Tell me more about the first article " leads to this summary: " The first article is titled “Causes of death and infant mortality rates among full-term births in the United States between 2010 and 2012: An observational study” and was published in PLOS Medicine on March 20, 2018. The authors are Neha Bairoliya and Günther Fink. The study used linked birth and death records for the period 2010–2012 to identify the state- and cause-specific burden of infant mortality among full-term infants (born at 37–42 weeks of gestation) in the United States. The researchers found that the full-term infant mortality rate (FTIMR) was 2.2 per 1,000 live births overall and ranged between 1.29 (Connecticut) and 3.77 (Mississippi) at the state level. Sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) accounted for 43% of FTIM; congenital malformations and perinatal conditions accounted for 31% and 11.3% of FTIM, respectively. The largest mortality differentials between states with good and states with poor FTIMR were found for SUDI, with particularly large risk differentials for deaths due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and suffocation." More searches: Please find five empirical studies focusing on the factors influencing adult learners engaged in online education. Please locate five scholarly articles on stress management among college students site:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Image illustrating data extraction

The ERIC Thesaurus contains nearly 12,000 terms, including more than 4,500 descriptors and 7,000 synonyms1. You can use the term “Academic Achievement” or its synonyms such as “Educational Achievement”, “Student Achievement”, “Academic Performance”, “Academic Success”, “Learning Achievement” and more. [ Note : The follow-up responses include some additional sources. See two below: https://www.powerthesaurus.org/academic_achievement https://eric.ed.gov/?ti=Achievement+Gap   including https://eric.ed.gov/?ti=Academic+Achievement |

My topic is about psychology.  Which grey literature databases should I use?

ChatGPT PsycEXTRA : This database is produced by the American Psychological Association (APA) and includes grey literature such as conference papers, white papers, and government reports. OpenGrey : This database provides access to grey literature produced in Europe, including reports, theses, and conference papers Grey Literature Report : This database is produced by The New York Academy of Medicine and includes reports, conference papers, and other grey literature on health and biomedical topics, including psychology. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global : This database provides access to graduate-level research, including theses and dissertations related to psychology. Google Scholar: While not exclusively a grey literature database, Google Scholar can be a useful tool for finding conference papers and other grey literature related to psychology. National Technical Information Service (NTIS) : This database provides access to technical reports produced by U.S. government agencies, including those related to psychology. Bing AI   - [asked in the Precise mode] For psychology, some recommended grey literature databases include PsycEXTRA and PsyArXiv . PsycEXTRA is a database of grey literature material relating to psychology, behavioral sciences and health. PsyArXiv is a psychology archive designed to facilitate rapid dissemination of psychological research. What other models have been developed based on SERVQUAL?

ChatGPT SERVPERF: This is a modified version of SERVQUAL that measures service performance instead of service quality. It was developed by Cronin and Taylor (1992) and is based on the same five dimensions as SERVQUAL. SERVPERF-GAP: This model, developed by Caruana and Ewing (2006), extends the SERVQUAL model to include three additional gaps that can occur when customers evaluate service quality. E-SERVQUAL: This model, developed by Parasuraman et al. (2005), adapts the SERVQUAL scale to measure the quality of online services. SERVCO: This is a modified version of SERVQUAL that includes a sixth dimension, "cost," in addition to the five original dimensions. It was developed by Sureshchandar et al. (2002) to address the importance of cost in service quality evaluation. SERVQ-HC: This is a modified version of SERVQUAL that is specifically designed for evaluating the quality of health care services. It was developed by Cronin et al. (2000) and includes 20 items across five dimensions. Bing AI The Nordic model of service quality2. The hierarchical model of service quality3. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)4.

     Bing AI Sidebar - CHAT, THINK, & WRITE

  • Examples of Using AI sidebar to Recap Google Scholar findings

Chat - If you highlight a study in the search results of Google Scholar, you will be prompted with a question by AI sidebar asking if you want to send the selected text to it. If you choose to do so, you can then select either  EXPLAIN or EXPAND to learn more about the chosen article. It's worth noting that EXPAND provides more detailed information. You can then click on any of the follow-up links to delve further into the selected article or topic. If the text of the chosen study is written in a foreign language, the AI sidebar can also provide an explanation of the text in English. Another option for extracting the key points from a selected article is to submit the URL of the PDF. Insights - Use the insights button to get more ideas about the topic. Compose - Tell the Edge sidebar your topic and let its Compose tool to generate a draft for you. Google Scholar Button- See also the Plugins and Extension page for how to perform a combined search using Google, Google Scholar, and ChatGPT .

Example: FINDING SIMILAR ARTICLES Find similar articles like this one - [then paste in the abstract ] Note - Use this prompt with Bing chat since real-time web info is required.

Examples: SUMMARIZE + REFERENCE Use a basic prompt like " Please summarize . ..." or add a REFERENCE TEXT that provides the necessary information about what you want it to focus or how the summary or resolution should look like. The reference could be a quote, an excerpt, a partial sentence, a conversation, an abstract, a code snippet and so on. Formula : Specify a role > assign a task > provide a reference text. Example#1 - Scholarly Journal Quote

STEP 1 Prompt: As a research assistant specializing in renewable energy, your task is to locate comparable research studies based on the provided abstract from an article: "This paper discusses the perspective of renewable energy (wind, solar, wave and biomass) in the making of strategies for a sustainable development. Such strategies typically involve three major technological changes: energy savings on the demand side, efficiency improvements in the energy production, and replacement of fossil fuels by various sources of renewable energy."

Bing Chat then found 3 documents: the ScienceDirect paper where the abstract came from and two other documents from un.org and frontiersin.org respectively.

STEP 2 Prompt: Please synthesize the findings of the three studies provided above.

Bing Chat: "Sure! Here is a synthesis of the findings from the three studies:

All three studies emphasize the importance of renewable energy in achieving sustainable development and mitigating climate change. They all discuss various strategies and actions that can be taken to increase the use of renewable energy sources and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Henrik Lund’s paper discusses the perspective of renewable energy (wind, solar, wave and biomass) in the making of strategies for a sustainable development. Such strategies typically involve three major technological changes: energy savings on the demand side, efficiency improvements in the energy production, and .....

The United Nations outlines five critical actions the world needs to prioritize now to transform our energy systems and speed up the shift to renewable energy: Make renewable energy technology a global public good, Improve global access to components and raw materials......

“Sustainable Energy Transition for Renewable and Low Carbon Grid” discusses that a sustainable global electricity transition will entail increased use of renewable energy sources particularly wind and solar, nuclear energy as a low carbon energy source, electrification of transport and.......

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  • Journal Article - Blaizot A, Veettil SK, Saidoung P, et al. Using artificial intelligence methods for systematic review in health sciences: A systematic review. Res Synth Methods. 2022;13(3):353-362. doi:10.1002/jrsm.1553
  • Journal Article - Whitfield S & Hofmann MA. (2023) Elicit: AI literature review research assistant, Public Services Quarterly, 19:3, 201-207, DOI: 10.1080/15228959.2023.2224125.
  • LibGuide - Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT be used to produce systematic reviews? Royal Melbourne Hospital Health Sciences Library
  • Book Chapter - Byun J. and Stuhlmüller A. (2023), "Elicit: Language models as research tools", in Artificial Intelligence in Science: Challenges, Opportunities and the Future of Research, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/174aee8f-en.
  • YouTube Video: Lam M. How to Use AI for Research: Elicit.org for writing a literature review. BU Cares Research Center. 16 minutes.
  • YouTube Video: Mills, A. Teaching AI Literacy Using Elicit.org, February 2023.
  • Video - Explore a New Research Field with Elicit. Ought. n.d.. YouTube.

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  • Blog Post - Bello, Camille. The Best AI Tools to Power Your Research. EuroNewsNext. 1/4/2023.
  • Blog Post - Mullanvathukkal, Chinchu C. Elicit, Research Rabbit, Connected Papers and other literature discovery tools. October 14, 2022.
  • Blog Post - Raftis, Ric. How to use Elicit Research Artificial Intelligence for Better Results — Part 1. December 10, 2022.
  • Blog Post - Yoo, Nari. Literature review tools: Elicit, Talk to Books, Open Syllabus, Connected Papers, and Annual Reviews. March 18, 2022.
  • Blog Post - Wiggers, Kyle . Elicit is building a tool to automate science literature review. TechCrunch. 9/23/2023.
  • Blog Post - Parker, Jessica. Exploring the features and functions of Elicit an AI research assistant for literature reviews. Dissertation by Design. April 23, 2023.

Other Resources:

  • Online Discussion - Stuhlmueller and Jungofthewon. Elicit: Language Models as Research Assistants. April 9, 2022.
  • Twitter Thread - Bilal, Mushtaq. Elicit (step-by-step instructions). 12/26/2022.
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  • How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

  • Search for relevant literature
  • Evaluate sources
  • Identify themes, debates, and gaps
  • Outline the structure
  • Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

  • Quick Run-through
  • Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

  • Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
  • Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
  • Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
  • Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
  • Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Literature review guide

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

  • Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
  • Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
  • Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
  • Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

  • Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
  • Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
  • Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

  • Your university’s library catalogue
  • Google Scholar
  • Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
  • Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
  • EconLit (economics)
  • Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

  • What question or problem is the author addressing?
  • What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
  • What are the key theories, models, and methods?
  • Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
  • What are the results and conclusions of the study?
  • How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

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literature review research assistant

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

  • Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
  • Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
  • Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
  • Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
  • Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

  • Most research has focused on young women.
  • There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
  • But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

  • Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
  • Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
  • Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

  • Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
  • Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
  • Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
  • Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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

  • Sampling methods
  • Simple random sampling
  • Stratified sampling
  • Cluster sampling
  • Likert scales
  • Reproducibility

 Statistics

  • Null hypothesis
  • Statistical power
  • Probability distribution
  • Effect size
  • Poisson distribution

Research bias

  • Optimism bias
  • Cognitive bias
  • Implicit bias
  • Hawthorne effect
  • Anchoring bias
  • Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

  • To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
  • To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
  • To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
  • To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
  • To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

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