15 Online Research Tools You Need To Start Using Today

By Uloop Guest Writer on October 12, 2015

By: Antonio Tooley

Every written assignment starts with an idea. In order to develop that idea and support it with sufficient information, you need to spend a lot of time doing research, because that’s the foundation of every paper.

But, the Internet is a vast place, so it can be somewhat difficult to find the right information. The majority of students are oblivious when it comes to making search engines work for them, and then there is the issue of organizing piles of data and providing proper citations.

But, help is at hand with 15 online research tools selected and reviewed for you. Check out the list below.

1. CiteULike

The first in line of research tools you should be using is CiteULike. This effective web-based resource allows you to search scientific and academic papers, and add references to them directly from your web browser of choice. Another clever thing CiteULike does is automatically read metadata, like the name of the author, title, year of publishing, and so on.

Organization is carried out with the help of tags. It can also be used for social bookmarking, which means you can share your references with others, and export them to other services, like EndNote.

2. ColWiz

Derived from the words “collective wisdom,” ColWiz is available in three different versions: web, desktop and mobile. It is what you might call a tool with good “pedigree,” since it was developed by researchers from the University of Oxford, and also is used by the likes of IBM, Procter&Gamble, Disney, and pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

It allows you to access places like Google Scholar, PubMed, and the majority of other locations. You can add and save references to your ColWiz library, and also export them and share with others.

3. Write My Essay

If you are struggling to come up with enough research information on a certain topic, you can commission an essay on it from this reputable essay writing service. It gathers some of the best writers on the web. Remember that a well-written and properly referenced essay is every bit as valid as a source as is any book. You can use the work of their writers as a basis for your own essay.

4. My Science Work

This incredibly powerful online platform will grant you access to over 31 million (!) high-quality research papers and publications, 20 million of which you can access for free. What’s different about it is that it allows you to comment and review the papers you have read. That way, you can save yourself countless hours and access the best content right away.

5. Paperity

Paperity differs from all the other services which index research papers, because it also aggregates them, making it unique in that aspect. Another reason why it’s unique is because it aggregates papers from several hundred different disciplines, which should appeal to a wide number of students.

You can access around 160,000 scientific and scholarly papers through Paperity with no charge.

6. PubGet

This free online service acts like a search engine for articles and papers, predominantly in the field of medicine and science, and indexes content from places like PubMed, American Society of Microbiology, ArXiv, and plenty more. You can access around 28 million papers directly from the citation, thanks to PubGet’s database which is updated daily with nearly 10,000 new additions.

7. Zotero

What makes Zotero so clever is its discreet presence as an add-on inside your browser. Once it’s there, thanks to its ability to recognize content automatically, you will be able to save and organize your research results with a single click. You can easily create your own personal library, with all the data you need in one place, searchable by tags.

8. Mendeley

Mendeley is a multi-functional tool, which can help you research, manage and save your references, create your own custom and fully searchable bibliographies, and import and export to and from other services and apps. It also provides you with suggestions that are similar to those you have already researched, but the biggest advantage of Mendeley is that it’s also an academic network through which you can connect with other students.

9. ReadCube

Readcube is available for use online, or as a desktop application, which will enable you to search, annotate, and organize academic literature. Unlike some of the tools on this list, it’s not open source, but you are allowed to download, or rent papers and articles over a period of two days. Thanks to its collaboration with numerous publishers, you will have access to plenty of content.

10. Sparrho

If you want to receive personalized science literature recommendations that you consider relevant, Sparrho is an essential tool. All you have to do is to provide the platform with keywords and you will receive a custom newsfeed every day, since Sparrho has a huge database containing more than 5 million documents, and regularly checks around 18,000 different sources.

11. Research Compendia

This online platform is built around the idea that all scientific research needs to be reproducible, accessible, and trackable, meaning that in addition to getting access to research results, you also get tools, methods, and all the code that was used in the creation of the publication.

12. Zenodo

Developed by CERN, Zenodo focuses on the long tail of science, and provides the means for students, scholars, as well as academic and scientific institutions to share and preserve their data and published papers that aren’t on the map of institutional data repositories. It also encompasses content from multiple disciplines.

13. Scizzle

Scizzle operates based on the same principle as Sparrho. It is a platform which allows researchers and scientists to share and aggregate content, but also receive customized newsfeeds, based on their interests and field of expertise. Scizzle also allows you to create your own collections of abstracts which can be easily shared with others.

14. Microsoft Academic Research

Originally conceived by Microsoft as a scholarly search engine meant to compete with Google Scholar, it has largely been abandoned in recent years. However, the service is still online, offering information on almost 40 million publications, and indexing nearly 20 million authors, making it a valuable resource, especially for students.

15. Pub Niche

This website simply curates scientific research and news, and you can find plenty of data, but you will have to spend a lot of time digging through it to find the right content.

Now, you won’t need to use every single one of these tools, but we have provided you with enough different options so you can find the one which fit your needs best. Research tools are a necessity, and soon after you start using them, you will realize how much easier the entire research process becomes. More importantly, the quality of your papers will increase significantly as well, because you will gain better access to the right research data, and have more time left for writing. Good luck.

 

Antonio is a hopeless optimist who enjoys basking in the world’s brightest colors. He loves biking to distant places and occasionally he gets lost. When not doing that he’s blogging and teaching ESL. He will be happy to meet you on Facebook and Twitter.

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