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Research Made Easy

computer

Time, as always, is a key factor when doing research. It’s a boon when technology can speed up that process. Once you learn about and start using the following technologies, the process of finding, saving, and organizing research materials will flow much smoother.

Find it: Research-based Search Engines

Not all search engines are made equal. Results in Google are based on popularity metrics. However, by using Google Scholar and Cuil (pronounced cool), search results will come from scholarly literature and academic disciplines.

google scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar helps you to search through scholarly literature: peer-reviewed papers, theses, abstracts, articles, and books. It connects to academic publishers, professional societies, universities, and other scholarly organizations. It does not rank search results by popularity criteria as a normal Google search would. It ranks them according to the content of the material, who the author is, which publication the article appears in, and how often the article has been cited in other scholarly research.

Google Scholar Features

  • Searches scholarly sources
  • Locates scholarly papers, abstracts, and citations
  • Discovers key papers in any area of research
  • Locates online libraries for electronic copies of the information or brick and mortar libraries that have physical copies of the work.

More Helpful Links

  • Click here to read general information about Google Scholar and to understand your search results.
  • Click here to read about advanced search tips.

cuil

Cuil

Cuil (the Gaelic word for knowledge) is an exceptionally different search engine. It doesn’t focus on click-throughs or user Web site popularity. Relevancy is more important than numbers. When it locates a page containing your keywords, it analyzes the page content and its concepts as it relates to your keywords.

(Note: Cuil’s home page has problems displaying visually in Firefox on a Mac OS 10.4.11 or older systems. It is functional but it is difficult to see what you are typing in the search box. )

Cuil Features

  • Drill down capabilities. In addition to the results from your search, Cuil will create an Explore by Category panel on the right side of the page. Explore by Category provides suggestions for additional information. As you mouse-over the words, it will open up and give further suggestions for related areas that you might not have originally thought about.
  • Roll-over definitions. As you mouse over a word in the Explore by Category box, a pop-out definition will appear giving a definition of that word.

explore by category

Roll-over example

  • Tabs. When you type in a general term, Cuil displays tabs at the top of the page to help clarify your search.

tabs example

Tabs example

Save it. Share it: Managing Research References

Once your Internet searches have produced useful information, you will need to have a system to save and organize your references. You might need to share your references with colleagues or other researchers. Zotero and Connotea are two great methods for saving and sharing.

zotero

Zotero

Zotero is a Firefox extension that helps you to collect, manage, and cite any research material you find on the Internet.

Zotero Features

  • Automatically captures citation information from Web pages
  • Stores images, links, PDFs, and whole Web pages
  • Provides note taking capabilities
  • Integrates with Microsoft Word
  • Integrates with blogging software
  • Has advanced search and data mining tools
  • Offers tagging capabilities

What Professors Say About Zotero
Professor Charles Graham, IT
“I like Zotero because it is an open source tool that is free for students and faculty to use. I use it in a foundations class in our department where students are building bibliographies and learning the basics of APA formatting.

“Another reason that I like Zotero is that I can go to Google Scholar, or Web of Science, or Ebsco or any other bibliographic database and easily download all the reference information for papers. Then I can easily format the citations and references for inclusion in a research paper. It is as easy as drag and drop with the MS Word Zotero plugin.

“I was an Endnote user previously and I hadn’t used RefWorks because you have to be online to use that tool. Zotero is integrated right into the Firefox browser and the reference library can be used anytime whether I am online or offline. It’s a powerful tool that is useful to me and my students and it’s free.”

More Helpful Links

connotea

Connotea

Connotea is a Web site, so you do not have to download and install anything on your computer. Your Connotea library is held on the Web and is easily accessible from any computer that has Internet access. This also allows you to easily share your Connotea library with colleagues.

Connotea Features

  • Saves and organizes links to various Web sites
  • Saves references with just one click
  • Allows references to be public to everyone, private, or shared with a selected group of colleagues
  • Searches other Connotea users’ libraries

More Helpful Links

We would like to hear from you! Please share your experiences with any of these technologies. Send your comments to techtips@byu.edu. Thanks so much!