Top AI Tools for Literature Review 

As researchers, conducting a thorough study involves a critical step: performing a literature review. Researchers often encounter challenges such as dealing with a large volume of literature, struggling to find relevant studies, synthesizing findings, and staying updated with the latest research.

Thankfully, AI tools designed for literature reviews are aiding researchers in overcoming these obstacles by offering efficient methods to search, filter, and analyze literature effectively. This blog post will delve into some of the leading AI tools for literature reviews and their role in streamlining the research process.

Top AI tools for literature review

Performing a literature review can be a time-consuming and challenging task, requiring researchers to sift through extensive information sources.

However, with the assistance of these AI literature review tools, managing large volumes of information becomes much easier.

There are several AI tools available to assist with literature reviews. However, the best tool for you will depend on your specific needs.

Do you prioritize comprehensive search capabilities and full-text access?

Are you more concerned about easy organization and citation management? Or do you prefer AI-powered summaries to quickly grasp key findings?

Evaluate the functionalities of each tool and choose the one that best complements your research workflow. With the right AI tool, conducting your literature review can become much easier and more efficient.

Mendeley

Mendeley is a comprehensive reference management software widely used by researchers, academics, and students for literature review and research organization. Founded in 2007 by PhD students and acquired by Elsevier in 2013, Mendeley has become a versatile platform for organizing, sharing, and discovering research papers.

Here are the detailed features of Mendeley as an AI tool for literature reviews:

1. Managing References: Users can store, organize, and search all their references in one library, simplifying the management of extensive literature and facilitating future access and citation.
2. Literature Search: While a dedicated literature search feature was removed in the latest version, Mendeley still supports importing references from other sources and uses its academic social network to facilitate literature discovery and sharing.
3. PDF Viewing and Note-taking: Mendeley’s PDF viewer allows users to open PDFs directly and add highlights and notes to documents. These annotations are saved in the user’s Mendeley account and can be exported as a new PDF file for collaborative review and personal note-taking.
4. Collaboration and Sharing: Private groups can be created for collaboration, enabling users to share references and annotated documents with co-workers or research team members, enhancing the collaborative nature of literature review.
5. Citation and Bibliography Automation: Mendeley Cite, an add-in for Microsoft Word, automates citation and bibliography generation in various citation styles, streamlining the citation process and saving time during literature review.

Unpaywall

Unpaywall is a free database that provides open access to academic articles, sourced from a vast network of over 50,000 publishers and repositories worldwide. It utilizes open data sources like PubMed Central, DOAJ, Crossref, and DataCite, and is integrated into major databases such as Dimensions, Scopus, and Web of Science. For users with Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), Unpaywall offers tools to locate open access and full-text articles. Data can be accessed through REST API, R API Wrapper, the Simple Query Tool, or by downloading the entire dataset.

Key Features of Unpaywall:

1. Browser Extension: Unpaywall’s browser extension automatically searches for legally available, free versions of scholarly articles while browsing online. If an open access version is found in Unpaywall’s database, a green tab appears on the browser, allowing direct access to the full text of the article. Powered by an index of over 20 million free, legal full-text PDFs, this feature aids in accessing open access literature effortlessly.
2. Simple Query Tool: This tool helps users check if there is an open access version of articles they are interested in, particularly beneficial for those with lists of DOIs seeking free, full-text articles from Unpaywall’s extensive database.

Zotero

Zotero is an accessible and user-friendly reference management tool designed to aid in gathering, organizing, citing, and sharing research sources. It acts as a personal research assistant for students, researchers, and academics, streamlining the literature review process efficiently.

1. Managing References: Zotero enables users to gather citations from diverse sources like books, articles, media, webpages, etc. It offers a central library for organizing references into collections, tagging them with keywords, and setting up saved searches that automatically fetch relevant materials.
2. PDF Viewing and Note-taking: With its integrated PDF viewer, Zotero allows users to highlight text, add sticky notes, and capture snapshots of images or charts within PDFs. Annotations made in the PDF viewer are saved within Zotero and can be extracted as searchable notes for better organization.
3. Collaboration and Sharing: The Groups feature in Zotero facilitates collaboration among users through shared libraries. Users can create private, public closed, or public open groups for collaborative research projects, sharing course materials, or building collaborative bibliographies.
4. Citation and Bibliography Automation: Zotero seamlessly integrates with word processors like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs to insert citations and bibliographies directly into documents. It supports over 10,000 citation styles, allowing users to format their work according to any style guide or publication requirement.

R Discovery

R Discovery is a vast scholarly content repository, providing access to over 250 million research papers. It expedites your research discovery process by offering the latest and most relevant content in your field of interest. Here are some benefits tailored to students and researchers, enhancing their research findings and reading experience:

1. Personalized Research Reading Feeds: R Discovery creates an academic reading library based on the user’s interests, offering personalized reading recommendations and daily alerts on top papers to keep users updated with the latest research.
2. Reading Lists: Users can create and manage separate reading lists for different literature reviews they are conducting, ensuring their research remains organized.
3. Seamless Reference Manager Integration: R Discovery seamlessly integrates with reference managers like Zotero and Mendeley, automatically syncing users’ libraries with saved or removed papers, ensuring their reference collections are up to date.
4. Multilingual & Full-Text Audio Features: R Discovery provides audio versions of research abstracts or full-text articles in over 30 languages, benefiting non-native English speakers and enhancing accessibility and comprehension.
5. Smart Research Notifications: The app sends targeted research alerts and notifications based on users’ reading habits and preferences, with a limit of three research paper notifications per day to prevent information overload. Notifications include curated lists of top research papers, updates from preferred journals, and alerts on available full-text articles.

Scholarcy

Scholarcy is an innovative tool crafted to aid researchers, students, and academics in managing the often-daunting task of literature reviews. It harnesses artificial intelligence to automatically extract crucial information from academic papers, creating structured summaries that enhance the evaluation and comprehension of research articles.

Here are the detailed features of Scholarcy, particularly beneficial for literature reviews:

1. Interactive Summaries with Flashcards: Scholarcy generates interactive flashcard summaries from various documents, offering a concise overview of key information. These summaries are perfect for quick skimming or grasping the essential points of an article before diving into the full text.
2. Seamless Reference Management Integration: Scholarcy allows exporting flashcards to reference management software like Zotero. This integration enables users to view reference details alongside key highlights and structured summaries generated by Scholarcy.
3. Access to Full Text and Citations: Scholarcy provides convenient access to full-text articles and cited papers, linking directly to them through icons and services like Libkey for institutional subscription access. Users can also view key findings from cited articles, offering a comprehensive citation context.
4. Efficient Literature Discovery and Screening: Scholarcy assists in discovering and screening new literature efficiently. Its browser extension offers detailed synopses and highlights, facilitating comprehensive screening in just minutes compared to traditional methods.
5. Smart Text Highlighting and Analysis: Scholarcy guides users to important text sections and aids in interpreting them through smart highlighting and analysis. It identifies factual statements and findings, highlighting them in different colors for quick comprehension (blue for factual statements and orange for findings).