“I will read this paper later.” I thought to myself before adding another paper to my overflowing internet browser.
Of course, I didn’t read it later.
Since my workflow was unorganized, I missed out on reading many important papers.
This was a crucial period in my undergraduate career. I had been working with a company for my final year project and knew success would require a solid intellectual foundation. For many hours, I read papers, determined to master the literature in my field.
“How to find research papers quickly?” has been a never-ending question for me.
However, I was unable to succeed despite my best intentions, largely due to inefficiency. In addition, I did not have a system in place for keeping track of new papers being published daily in my topic area or checking if I had missed key studies.
Nothing is worse than forgetting where you saved an important research paper. If I couldn’t find that specific paper, I couldn’t do anything else, and sometimes a day would pass before I found it.
As I was about to begin my PhD, I convinced myself that I should be more organized.
This is the first post of the four-part blog series: The Bulletproof Literature Management System. Follow the links below to read the other posts in the series:
- How to How to find Research Papers (You are here)
- How to Manage Research Papers
- How to Read Research Papers
- How to Organize Research Papers
My workflow has evolved through many iterations, and I have finally found a system that suits my needs after lots of trial and error.
These tips will help you how to find research papers quickly and more efficiently.
Get recommendations from your supervisor
You may have already received a folder of information from your supervisor regarding your thesis topic. Your supervisor should have already been working on the proposal before you were hired for a funded project.
My supervisor, for example, has a folder named “Literature” for each project folder that contains all the important papers one might need to complete that project.
Therefore, asking your supervisor is one of the most straightforward ways to find research papers.
Even though your supervisor has not put up a folder like that, you can still ask them for recommendations, and they can point out a couple of pertinent articles. From there, you can find the references in the papers they recommended.
Use feed aggregators
Feed aggregators, such as Feedly, Inoreader, and NewsBlur, help me organize my feeds. In the morning, I dedicate five minutes to scanning my feed. For most papers, I just glance at the title and scroll past. Whenever I come across something interesting, I add it to my ‘Read Later’ folder.
Instead of storing papers in an unsecured location, my papers are more secure. As a result, it is much easier for me to look at that folder later on.
Use literature mapping tools
ResearchRabbit, Inciteful, Litmaps, and Connected Papers are literature-mapping tools you can use to dig deeper into a topic. It lets you see which papers are the most groundbreaking in a given field based on their citation networks.
This might not be very helpful if you’re doing research in a relatively new area. Finding relevant research papers in such cases may be more challenging.
This is why checking research databases would be a better option.
Use standard research databases
SCOPUS
Scopus has strong searching capabilities and publishes metrics that can measure the relative importance of papers in their fields. However, it may take up to 2 years before an article is included in Scopus.
It has more features for sorting and filtering, so you might not feel overwhelmed when searching.
Therefore, if you are just starting your research, SCOPUS might be an excellent option for finding research papers.
ResearchGate
In addition to traditional searching for publications, ResearchGate offers the following features:
- Follow researchers in your field, so you can keep up with their work.
- Keep up-to-date with the research projects of other researchers by following their research projects, and
- Comment on publications, ask questions, and send direct messages to interact with others.
As most of the comments on ResearchGate are coming from experts in their respective fields, the QnA section may be a great resource for finding the right paper for your research.
RSS
An RSS(Really Simple Syndication) feed, as the name implies, is a straightforward solution. By subscribing to RSS, users can access content from specific websites.
You can find RSS feeds for nearly every major journal and preprint server on their home pages – just look for the orange icon. As new articles are added to PubMed or Google Scholar, you can even subscribe to specific keywords.
Use academic textbooks the right way
If you are new to a particular research area, it would be best to start by reading textbooks to understand the topic better.
Despite the lack of depth and detail in a textbook, it can provide you with the basic concepts you need to read further. Furthermore, textbooks often include extensive lists of references as well as this information to get you started. Download the relevant articles from these references.
You might feel overwhelmed if you try to read an academic textbook from beginning to end. For this reason, read only the sections which contain the information you need for your project.
Review papers are game changers
A review paper on your topic is a great starting point for finding good references and getting a broad overview of your research topic.
After reading the review paper, you can read the references cited therein.
You are reading a much more comprehensive summary of the topic than you would have found reading ten individual research papers on the same topic if you found a highly relevant review paper for your research.
Look for technical reports and theses
Make sure you don’t limit yourself to research papers when looking for references. A technical report or code document on your topic may contain important citations (as well as practical information).
There is nothing that compares to a PhD thesis when it comes to the depth and extent of analytical work. See which references students have cited in their theses on your topic.
If you find a relevant thesis for your literature review, you will have extensive information about the research topic in one place, saving you a ton of time.
Google Scholar
The best for the last!
Due to its versatility and efficiency in finding academic papers, I decided to include Google Scholar separately from the database section.
I enjoy using Google Scholar among all the fancy databases available. One drawback to Google Scholar is that it lacks the ability to search for keywords and filter results.
Therefore, if you are just starting your research and aren’t sure what “keywords” to search for, Google Scholar might not be your first choice.
The advantage of Google Scholar is that if you are already familiar with your field of study and already know what you are doing, you will be able to find relevant research papers more quickly.
Use Google Scholar’s search function to locate relevant articles. Furthermore, you can subscribe to updates from colleagues in your field to access the latest references. The publisher of a journal paper may also report an article faster to Google Scholar than another database, which can take up to two years to include an article.
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