Changing the way I find research papers
Recently, I read a tweet which has changed the way I find research papers. Let me explain.
Up until now, I had been using my university’s library search or Google Scholar to find relevant research papers, but always had to be relatively specific with search terms, and no other related articles would appear in the search unless they shared keywords with the original search term. That is, until I discovered Research Rabbit.
Research Rabbit lets you organise papers into ‘collections’ in whatever way you choose: perhaps you have a topic to research, that might form your first collection, or maybe you have an assignment write-up that has a collection of it’s own. You start by searching for a paper to add to your first collection. Once you’ve added it, Research Rabbit then offers suggestions that are either related to that paper, newer research, older research, or research by the same author. These results are displayed in a spider diagram, and the more papers you add to that collection, the larger the spider diagram gets. This is an incredible way of discovering similar research papers in a way that I previously never would have done! But it gets better: Zotero integration.
Zotero is a free-reference management software which also stores papers in ’collections’ within your account. With Zotero, you can store PDF versions or links to online papers within each reference. PDFs can be annotated and notes can be added from within the software. Think of it as like a sketchpad app, which includes all related PDFs of your chosen research topic. Once you have built your collection within Research Rabbit, simply sync it with Zotero and all your related research papers will appear in your chosen Zotero collection. From here, you can right click and select ‘Find available PDF's’, and Zotero will search for open access versions of your papers. Should it fail to find any, a simple Google Scholar or university library search will usually uncover a copy, which can then be added to the reference in Zotero, ready for annotation. You can also generate bibliographies directly from Zotero, complete with DOIs, to copy and paste into your assignment or research paper.
The possibilities are truly endless with the Research Rabbit x Zotero combination. I can return to Research Rabbit at any time, add new items to each collection and re-sync with Zotero to update my references. Genuinely excited to use this resource this semester and beyond!
