Knobull Streamlines The Research Process

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Oct. 23, 2022 - PRLog -- The President of Knobull, Lynn Bentley reported, "Knowing what has already been established within the field is the first step in any research project. But reconceptualizing volumes of peer-reviewed literature over extended periods of time is not a straightforward process. It is best to use an academic search engines (ASEs) to help streamline a literature search."

Academic search engines aim to combine the convenience and power of web-based search engines with the rigour of peer-reviewed scholarly sources. Researchers can strategically use ASEs to compile an expansive bibliography and streamline the research process.

The underlying algorithms used by search engines are often referred to as "web crawlers"; these index a constant stream of online traffic. The metadata generated through this pre-filtering process are what allow search engines to return immediate results in response to keyword queries.

Knobull has expanded the number of documents hosted within their databases. This generates metadata for millions of sources, and is better suited for meta-analyses or systematic literature reviews.

Regardless of which ASE you choose, as a researcher, you need to use a consistent approach when planning a search.

• Summarise your topic or research questions into one or two sentences.
• Underline keywords in your topic and list their synonyms as alternate search terms.
• Search using different combinations of keywords, and assess if there are too many or too few relevant results.
• Sort the results by publication time frame and citation counts, and save any relevant articles to a personalised reading list.
• Use the "cited by" or "related articles" functionality of ASEs to expand the scope of your key references.
• ASEs are just another tool in a researcher's toolkit, and you can be creative in how you choose to use them.
• You can make a separate reading list for every new research effort, and quickly share these reference lists with your co-authors to speed up the final copy-editing process.

Bentley concluded, "You can create email alerts every time a prominent author in the field (yourself included!) publishes a new paper, or when a new study cites your work. The Knobull Academic Search Engine service can be used strategically to improve the public accessibility of academic literature and to help you streamline the research process."