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28 Best Academic Search Engines That make your research easier

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Academic Search Engines

If you’re a researcher or scholar, you know that conducting effective online research is a critical part of your job. And if you’re like most people, you’re always on the lookout for new and better ways to do it. 

I’m sure you are familiar with some research databases. But, top researchers keep an open mind and are always looking for inspiration in unexpected places. 

This article aims to give you an edge over researchers that rely mainly on Google for their entire research process.

Our list of 28 academic search engines will start with the more familiar to less.

Table of Contents

#1. Google Scholar

Academic Search Engines

Google Scholar is an academic search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.

Great for academic research, you can use Google Scholar to find articles from academic journals, conference proceedings, theses, and dissertations. The results returned by Google Scholar are typically more relevant and reliable than those from regular search engines like Google.

Tip: You can restrict your results to peer-reviewed articles only by clicking on the “Scholarly”

  • Scholarly results are typically more relevant and reliable than those from regular search engines like Google.
  • You can restrict your results to peer-reviewed articles only by clicking on the “Scholarly” tab.
  • Google Scholar database Coverage is extensive, with approx. 200 million articles indexed.
  • Abstracts are available for most articles.
  • Related articles are shown, as well as the number of times an article has been cited.
  • Links to full text are available for many articles.
  • Abstracts are only a snippet of the full article, so you might need to do additional searching to get the full information you need.
  • Not all articles are available in full text.

Google Scholar is completely free.

#2. ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) 

literature search engines list

ERIC (short for educational resources information center) is a great academic search engine that focuses on education-related literature. It is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and produced by the Institute of Education Sciences. 

ERIC indexes over a million articles, reports, conference papers, and other resources on all aspects of education from early childhood to higher education. So, search results are more relevant to Education on ERIC. 

  • Extensive coverage: ERIC indexes over a million articles, reports, and other resources on all aspects of education from early childhood to higher education.
  • You can limit your results to peer-reviewed journals by clicking on the “Peer-Reviewed” tab.
  • Great search engine for educators, as abstracts are available for most articles.

ERIC is a free online database of education-related literature. 

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#3. Wolfram Alpha

literature search engines list

Wolfram Alpha is a “computational knowledge engine” that can answer factual questions posed in natural language. It can be a useful search tool. 

Type in a question like “What is the square root of 64?” or “What is the boiling point of water?” and Wolfram Alpha will give you an answer.

Wolfram Alpha can also be used to find academic articles. Just type in your keywords and Wolfram Alpha will generate a list of academic articles that match your query.

Tip: You can restrict your results to peer-reviewed journals by clicking on the “Scholarly” tab.

  • Can answer factual questions posed in natural language.
  • Can be used to find academic articles.
  • Results are ranked by relevance.
  • Results can be overwhelming, so it’s important to narrow down your search criteria as much as possible.
  • The experience feels a bit more structured but it could also be a bit restrictive

Wolfram Alpha offers a few pricing options, including a “Pro” subscription that gives you access to additional features, such as the ability to create custom reports. You can also purchase individual articles or download them for offline use.

Pro costs $5.49 and Pro Premium costs $9.99

#4. iSEEK Education 

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iSEEK is a search engine targeting students, teachers, administrators, and caregiver. It’s designed to be safe with editor-reviewed content.

iSEEK Education also includes a “Cited by” feature which shows you how often an article has been cited by other researchers.

  • Editor-reviewed content.
  • “Cited by” feature shows how often an article has been cited by other researchers.
  • Limited to academic content.
  • Doesn’t have the breadth of coverage that some of the other academic search engines have.

iSEEK Education is free to use.

#5. BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)

literature search engines list

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that’s where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). 

Known as “one of the most comprehensive academic web search engines,” it contains over 100 million documents from 4,000 different sources. 

Users can narrow their search using the advanced search option, so regardless of whether you need a book, a review, a lecture, a video or a thesis, BASE has what you need.

BASE indexes academic articles from a variety of disciplines, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

  • One of the world’s most voluminous search engines, 
  • Indexes academic articles from a variety of disciplines, especially for academic web resources
  • Includes an “Advanced Search” feature that lets you restrict your results to peer-reviewed journals.
  • Doesn’t include abstracts for most articles.
  • Doesn’t have related articles, references, cited by

BASE is free to use.

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literature search engines list

CORE is an academic search engine that focuses on open access research papers. A link to the full text PDF or complete text web page is supplied for each search result. It’s academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers.

  • Focused on open access research papers.
  • Links to full text PDF or complete text web page are supplied for each search result.
  • Export formats include BibTeX, Endnote, RefWorks, Zotero.
  • Coverage is limited to open access research papers.
  • No abstracts are available for most articles.
  • No related articles, references, or cited by features.

CORE is free to use.

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#7. Science.gov

literature search engines list

Science.gov is a search engine developed and managed by the United States government. It includes results from a variety of scientific databases, including NASA, EPA, USGS, and NIST. 

US students are more likely to have early exposure to this tool for scholarly research. 

  • Coverage from a variety of scientific databases (200 million articles and reports).
  • Links to full text are available for some articles.

Science.gov is free to use.

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#8. Semantic Scholar

literature search engines list

Semantic Scholar is a recent entrant to the field. Its goal is to provide more relevant and effective search results via artificial intelligence-powered methods that detect hidden relationships and connections between research topics.

  • Powered by artificial intelligence, which enhances search results.
  • Covers a large number of academic articles (approx. 40 million).
  • Related articles, references, and cited by features are all included.
  • Links to full text are available for most articles.

Semantic Scholar is free to use.

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#9. RefSeek

literature search engines list

RefSeek searches more than five billion documents, including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers.

This is one of the free search engines that feels like Yahoo with a massive directory. It could be good when you are just looking for research ideas from unexpected angles. It could lead you to some other database that you might not know such as the CIA The World Factbook, which is a great reference tool.

  • Searches more than five billion documents.
  • The Documents tab is very focused on research papers and easy to use.
  • Results can be filtered by date, type of document, and language.
  • Good source for free academic articles, open access journals, and technical reports.
  • The navigation and user experience is very dated even to millenials…
  • It requires more than 3 clicks to dig up interesting references (which is how it could lead to you something beyond the 1st page of Google)
  • The top part of the results are ALL ads (well… it’s free to use)

RefSeek is free to use.

#10. ResearchGate 

literature search engines list

A mixture of social networking site + forum + content databases where researchers can build their profile, share research papers, and interact with one another.

Although it is not an academic search engine that goes outside of its site, ResearchGate ‘s library of works offers an excellent choice for any curious scholar.

There are more than 100 million publications available on the site from over 11 million researchers. It is possible to search by publication, data, and author, as well as to ask the researchers questions. 

  • A great place to find research papers and researchers.
  • Can follow other researchers and get updates when they share new papers or make changes to their profile.
  • The network effect can be helpful in finding people who have expertise in a particular topic.
  • Interface is not as user friendly
  • Can be overwhelming when trying to find relevant papers.
  • Some papers are behind a paywall.

ResearchGate is free to use.

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#11. DataONE Search (formerly CiteULike) 

literature search engines list

A social networking site for academics who want to share and discover academic articles and papers.

  • A great place to find academic papers that have been shared by other academics.
  • Some papers are behind a paywall

CiteULike is free to use.

#12. DataElixir 

literature search engines list

DataElixir is deigned to help you find, understand and use data. It includes a curated list of the best open datasets, tools and resources for data science.

  • Dedicated resource for finding open data sets, tools, and resources for data science.
  • The website is easy to navigate.
  • The content is updated regularly
  • The resources are grouped by category.
  • Not all of the resources are applicable to academic research.
  • Some of the content is outdated.

DataElixir is free to use.

#13. LazyScholar – browser extension

literature search engines list

LazyScholar is a free browser plugin that helps you discover free academic full texts, metrics, and instant citation and sharing links. Lazy Scholar is created Colby Vorland, a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University.

  • It can integrate with your library to find full texts even when you’re off-campus.
  • Saves your history and provides an interface to find it.
  • A pre-formed citation is availlable in over 900 citation styles.
  • Can recommend you topics and scans new PubMed listings to suggest new papers
  • Results can be a bit hit or miss

LazyScholar is free to use.

#14. CiteseerX – digital library from PenState

literature search engines list

CiteseerX is a digital library stores and indexes research articles in Computer Science and related fields. The site has a robust search engine that allows you to filter results by date, author.

  • Searches a large number of academic papers.
  • Results can be filtered by date, author, and topic.
  • The website is easy to use.
  • You can create an account and save your searches for future reference.

CiteseerX is free to use.

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#15. The Lens – patents search 

The Lens or the Patent Lens is an online patent and scholarly literature search facility, provided by Cambia, an Australia-based non-profit organization.

literature search engines list

  • Searches for a large number of academic papers.

The price range can be free for non-profit use to $5,000 for commercial enterprise.

#16. Fatcat – wiki for bibliographic catalog 

literature search engines list

Fatcat is an open bibliographic catalog of written works. The scope of works is somewhat flexible, with a focus on published research outputs like journal articles, pre-prints, and conference proceedings. Records are collaboratively editable, versioned, available in bulk form, and include URL-agnostic file-level metadata.

  • Open source and collaborative
  • You can be part of the community that is very focused on its mission
  • The archival file-level metadata (verified digests and long-term copies) is a great feature.
  • Could prove to be another rabbit hole
  • People either love or hate the text-only interface

#17. Lexis Web – Legal database

literature search engines list

Are you researching legal topics? You can turn to Lexis Web for any law-related questions you may have. The results are drawn from legal sites and can be filtered based on criteria such as news, blogs, government, and commercial. Additionally, users can filter results by jurisdiction, practice area, source and file format.

  • Results are drawn from legal sites.
  • Filters are available based on criteria such as news, blogs, government, and commercial.
  • Users can filter results by jurisdiction, practice area, source and file format.
  • Not all law-related questions will be answered by this search engine.
  • Coverage is limited to legal sites only.

Lexis Web is free for up to three searches per day. After that, a subscription is required.

#18. Infotopia – part of the VLRC family

literature search engines list

Infotopia touts itself as an “alternative to Google safe search.” Scholarly book results are curated by librarians, teachers, and other educational workers. Users can select from a range of topics such as art, health, and science and technology, and then see a list of resources pertaining to the topic. 

Consequently, if you aren’t able to find what you are looking for within Infotopia’s pages, you will probably find it on one of its many suggested websites.

#19. Virtual Learning Resources Center

literature search engines list

Virtual Learning Resources Center (VLRC) is an academic search engine that features thousands of academic sites chosen by educators and librarians worldwide. Using an index generated from a research portal, university, and library internet subject guides, students and instructors can find current, authoritative information for school.

  • Thousands of academic information websites indexed by it. You will also be able to get more refined results with custom Google search, which will speed up your research. 
  • Many people consider VLRC as one of the best free search engines to start looking for research material. 
  • TeachThought rated the Virtual LRC #3 in it’s list of 100 Search Engines For Academic Research
  • More relevant to education 
  • More relevant to students

literature search engines list

Powered by Google Custom Search Engine (CSE), Jurn is a free online search engine for accessing and downloading free full-text scholarly papers. It was created by David Haden in a public open beta version in February 2009, initially for locating open access electronic journal articles in the arts and humanities.

After the indexing process was completed, a website containing additional public directories of web links to indexed publications was introduced in mid-2009. The Jurn search service and directory has been regularly modified and cleaned since then.

  • A great resource for finding academic papers that are behind paywalls.
  • The content is updated regularly.uren

Jurn is free to use.

#21. WorldWideScience

literature search engines list

The Office of Scientific and Technical Information—a branch of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy—hosts the portal WorldWideScience , which has dubbed itself “The Global Science Gateway.”

Over 70 countries’ databases are used on the website. When a user enters a query, it contacts databases from all across the world and shows results in both English and translated journals and academic resources.

  • Results can be filtered by language and type of resource
  • Interface is easy to use
  • Contains both academic journal articles and translated academic resources 
  • The website can be difficult to navigate.

WorldWideScience is free to use.

#22. Google Books

literature search engines list

A user can browse thousands of books on Google Books, from popular titles to old titles, to find pages that include their search terms. You can look through pages, read online reviews, and find out where to buy a hard copy once you find the book you are interested in.

#23. DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)

literature search engines list

DOAJ is a free search engine for scientific and scholarly materials. It is a searchable database with over 8,000 peer-reviewed research papers organized by subject. It’s one of the most comprehensive libraries of scientific and scholarly resources, with over 8,000 journals available on a variety of themes.

#24. Baidu Scholar

literature search engines list

Baidu Xueshu (Academic) is the Chinese version for Google Scholar. IDU Scholar indexes academic papers from a variety of disciplines in both Chinese and English.

  • Articles are available in full text PDF.
  • Covers a variety of academic disciplines.
  • No abstracts are available for most articles, but summaries are provided for some.
  • A great portal that takes you to different specialized research platform
  • You need to be able to read Chinese to use the site
  • Since 2021 there is a rise of focus on China and the Chinese Communist Party

Baidu Scholar is free to use.

#25. PubMed Central

literature search engines list

PubMed is a free search engine that provides references and abstracts for medical, life sciences, and biomedical topics.

If you’re studying anything related to healthcare or science, this site is perfect. PublicMed Central is operated by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It contains more than 3 million full-text journal articles. 

It’s similar to PubMed Health, which focuses on health-related research and includes abstracts and citations to over 26 million articles.

#26. MEDLINE®

literature search engines list

MEDLINE® is a paid subscription database for life sciences and biomedicine that includes more than 28 million citations to journal articles. For finding reliable, carefully chosen health information, Medline Plus provides a powerful search tool and even a dictionary.

  • A great database for life sciences and biomedicine.
  • Contains more than 28 million references to journal articles.
  • References can be filtered by date, type of document, and language.
  • The database is expensive to access.
  • Some people find it difficult to navigate and find what they are looking for.

MEDLINE is not free to use ( pricing information ).

Defunct Academic Search Engines 

#27. microsoft academic  .

Microsoft Academic

Microsoft Academic Search seemed to be a failure from the beginning. It ended in 2012, then re-launched in 2016 as Microsoft Academic. It provides the researcher with the opportunity to search academic publications,

Microsoft Academic used to be the second-largest academic search engine after Google Scholar. Microsoft Academic provides a wealth of data for free, but Microsoft has announced that it will shut Microsoft Academic down in by 2022. 

#28. Scizzle

literature search engines list

Designed to help researchers stay on top of the literature by setting up email alerts, based on key terms, for newspapers.

Unfortunately, academic search engines come and go. These are two that are no longer available.

Final Thoughts

There are many academic search engines that can help researchers and scholars find the information they need. This list provides a variety of options, starting with more familiar engines and moving on to less well-known ones. 

Keeping an open mind and exploring different sources is essential for conducting effective online research. With so much information at our fingertips, it’s important to make sure we’re using the best tools available to us.

Tell us in the comment below which academic search engine have you not heard of? Which database do you think we should add? What database do your professional societies use? What are the most useful academic websites for research in your opinion?

There is more.

Check out our other articles on the Best Academic Tools Series for Research below.

  • Learn how to get more done with these Academic Writing Tools  
  • Learn how to proofread your work with these Proofreading Tools
  • Learn how to broaden your research landscape with these Academic Search Engines
  • Learn how to manage multiple research projects with these Project Management Tools
  • Learn how to run effective survey research with these Survey Tools for Research
  • Learn how get more insights from important conversations and interviews with Transcription Tools
  • Learn how to manage the ever-growing list of references with these Reference Management Software
  • Learn how to double your productivity with literature reviews with these AI-Based Summary Generators
  • Learn how to build and develop your audience with these Academic Social Network Sites
  • Learn how to make sure your content is original and trustworthy with these Plagiarism Checkers
  • Learn how to talk about your work effectively with these Science Communication Tools

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10 thoughts on “28 Best Academic Search Engines That make your research easier”

Thank you so much Joannah..I have found this information useful to me as librarian in an academic library

You are welcome! We are happy to hear that!

Thank You Team, for providing a comprehensive list of academic search engines that can help make research easier for students and scholars. The variety of search engines included offers a range of options for finding scholarly articles, journals, and other academic resources. The article also provides a brief summary of each search engine’s features, which helps in determining which one is the best fit for a specific research topic. Overall, this article is a valuable resource for anyone looking for a quick and easy way to access a wealth of academic information.

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We are delighted to hear that you found our list of academic search engines helpful in making research easier for students and scholars. We understand the importance of having a variety of options when it comes to finding scholarly articles, journals, and other academic resources, and we strive to provide a comprehensive list of resources to meet those needs.

We are glad that you found the brief summary of each search engine’s features helpful in determining which one is the best fit for a specific research topic. Our goal is to make it easy for our readers to access valuable academic information and we’re glad that we were able to achieve that for you.

We appreciate your support and thank you for your kind words. We will continue to provide valuable resources for students and researchers in the future. Please let us know if you have any further questions or suggestions.

No more questions Thank You

I cannot thank you enough!!! thanks alot 🙂

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Hi Joannah! Here’s another one you may want to add! Expontum ( https://www.expontum.com/ ) – Helps researchers quickly find knowledge gaps and identify what research projects have been completed before. Thanks!

Expontum – Helps researchers quickly find knowledge gaps and identify what research projects have been completed before. Expontum is free, open access, and available to all globally with no paid versions of the site. Automated processes scan research article information 24/7 so this website is constantly updating. By looking at over 35 million research publications (240 million by the end of 2023), the site has 146 million tagged research subjects and 122 million tagged research attributes. Learn more about methodology and sources on the Expontum About Page ( https://www.expontum.com/about.php )

Hey Ryan, I clicked and checked your site and thought it was very relevant to our reader. Thank you for sharing. And, we will be reviewing your site soon.

Sounds good! Thanks, Joannah!

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literature search engines list

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Literature Search: Databases and Gray Literature

The literature search.

  • A systematic review search includes a search of databases, gray literature, personal communications, and a handsearch of high impact journals in the related field.  See our list of recommended databases and gray literature sources on this page.
  • a comprehensive literature search can not be dependent on a single database, nor on bibliographic databases only.
  • inclusion of multiple databases helps avoid publication bias (georaphic bias or bias against publication of negative results).
  • The Cochrane Collaboration recommends PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) at a minimum.     
  • NOTE:  The Cochrane Collaboration and the IOM recommend that the literature search be conducted by librarians or persons with extensive literature search experience. Please contact the NIH Librarians for assistance with the literature search component of your systematic review. 

Cochrane Library

A collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. Search the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials here.

European database of biomedical and pharmacologic literature.

PubMed comprises more than 21 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.

Largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources. Contains conference papers.

Web of Science

World's leading citation databases. Covers over 12,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals and over 150,000 conference proceedings. Coverage in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, with coverage to 1900.

Subject Specific Databases

APA PsycINFO

Over 4.5 million abstracts of peer-reviewed literature in the behavioral and social sciences. Includes conference papers, book chapters, psychological tests, scales and measurement tools.

CINAHL Plus

Comprehensive journal index to nursing and allied health literature, includes books, nursing dissertations, conference proceedings, practice standards and book chapters.

Latin American and Caribbean health sciences literature database

Gray Literature

  • Gray Literature  is the term for information that falls outside the mainstream of published journal and mongraph literature, not controlled by commercial publishers
  • hard to find studies, reports, or dissertations
  • conference abstracts or papers
  • governmental or private sector research
  • clinical trials - ongoing or unpublished
  • experts and researchers in the field     
  • Library catalogs
  • Professional association websites
  • Google Scholar  - Search scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles.
  • Dissertation Abstracts - dissertation and theses database - NIH Library biomedical librarians can access and search for you.
  • NTIS  - central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information.
  • AHRQ  - agency for healthcare research and quality
  • Open Grey  - system for information on grey literature in Europe. Open access to 700,000 references to the grey literature.
  • World Health Organization  - providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
  • New York Academy of Medicine Grey Literature Report  - a bimonthly publication of The New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) alerting readers to new gray literature publications in health services research and selected public health topics. NOTE: Discontinued as of Jan 2017, but resources are still accessible.
  • Gray Source Index
  • OpenDOAR - directory of academic repositories
  • International Clinical Trials Registery Platform  - from the World Health Organization
  • Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry
  • Brazilian Clinical Trials Registry
  • Chinese Clinical Trial Registry - 
  • ClinicalTrials.gov   - U.S.  and international federally and privately supported clinical trials registry and results database
  • Clinical Trials Registry  - India
  • EU clinical Trials Register
  • Japan Primary Registries Network  
  • Pan African Clinical Trials Registry
  • En español – ExME
  • Em português – EME

Literature searches: what databases are available?

Posted on 6th April 2021 by Izabel de Oliveira

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Many types of research require a search of the medical literature as part of the process of understanding the current evidence or knowledge base. This can be done using one or more biomedical bibliographic databases. [1]

Bibliographic databases make the information contained in the papers more visible to the scientific community and facilitate locating the desired literature.

This blog describes some of the main bibliographic databases which index medical journals.

PubMed was launched in 1996 and, since June 1997, provides free and unlimited access for all users through the internet. PubMed database contains more than 30 million references of biomedical literature from approximately 7,000 journals. The largest percentage of records in PubMed comes from MEDLINE (95%), which contains 25 million records from over 5,600 journals. Other records derive from other sources such as In-process citations, ‘Ahead of Print’ citations, NCBI Bookshelf, etc.

The second largest component of PubMed is PubMed Central (PMC) . Launched in 2000, PMC is a permanent collection of full-text life sciences and biomedical journal articles. PMC also includes articles deposited by journal publishers and author manuscripts, published articles that are submitted in compliance with the public access policies of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other research funding agencies. PMC contains approximately 4.5 million articles.

Some National Library of Medicine (NLM) resources associated with PubMed are the NLM Catalog and MedlinePlus. The NLM Catalog contains bibliographic records for over 1.4 million journals, books, audiovisuals, electronic resources, and other materials. It also includes detailed indexing information for journals in PubMed and other NCBI databases, although not all materials in the NLM Catalog are part of NLM’s collection. MedlinePlus is a consumer health website providing information on various health topics, drugs, dietary supplements, and health tools.

MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the NLM controlled vocabulary used for indexing articles in PubMed. It is used by indexers who analyze and maintain the PubMed database to reflect the subject content of journal articles as they are published. Indexers typically select 10–12 MeSH terms to describe every paper.

Embase is considered the second most popular database after MEDLINE. More than 32 million records from over 8,200 journals from more than 95 countries, and ‘grey literature’ from over 2.4 million conference abstracts, are estimated to be in the Embase content.

Embase contains subtopics in health care such as complementary and alternative medicine, prognostic studies, telemedicine, psychiatry, and health technology. Besides that, it is also widely used for research on drug-related topics as it offers better coverage than MEDLINE on pharmaceutics-related literature.

In 2010, Embase began to include all MEDLINE citations. MEDLINE records are delivered to Elsevier daily and are incorporated into Embase after de-duplication with records already indexed by Elsevier to produce ‘MEDLINE-unique’ records. These MEDLINE-unique records are not re-indexed by Elsevier. However, their indexing is mapped to Emtree terms used in Embase to ensure that Emtree terminology can be used to search all Embase records, including those originally derived from MEDLINE.

Since this coverage expansion—at least in theory and without taking into consideration the different indexing practices of the two databases—a search in Embase alone should cover every record in both Embase and MEDLINE, making Embase a possible “one-stop” search engine for medical research [1].

Emtree is a hierarchically structured, controlled vocabulary for biomedicine and the related life sciences. It includes a whole range of terms for drugs, diseases, medical devices, and essential life science concepts. Emtree is used to index all of the Embase content. This process includes full-text indexing of journal articles, which is done by experts.

The most important index of the technical-scientific literature in Latin America and the Caribbean, LILACS , was created in 1985 to record scientific and technical production in health. It has been maintained and updated by a network of more than 600 institutions of education, government, and health research and coordinated by Latin America and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (BIREME), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and World Health Organization (WHO).

LILACS contains scientific and technical literature from over 908 journals from 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, with free access. About 900,000 records from articles with peer review, theses and dissertations, government documents, conference proceedings, and books; more than 480,000 of them are available with the full-text link in open access.

The LILACS Methodology is a set of standards, manuals, guides, and applications in continuous development, intended for the collection, selection, description, indexing of documents, and generation of databases. This centralised methodology enables the cooperation between Latin American and Caribbean countries to create local and national databases, all feeding into the LILACS database.  Currently, the databases LILACS, BBO, BDENF, MEDCARIB, and national databases of the countries of Latin America are part of the LILACS System.

Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS) is the multilingual and structured vocabulary created by BIREME to serve as a unique language in indexing articles from scientific journals, books, congress proceedings, technical reports, and other types of materials, and also for searching and retrieving subjects from scientific literature from information sources available on the Virtual Health Library (VHL) such as LILACS, MEDLINE, and others. It was developed from the MeSH with the purpose of permitting the use of common terminology for searching in multiple languages, and providing a consistent and unique environment for the retrieval of information. DeCS vocabulary is dynamic and totals 34,118 descriptors and qualifiers, of which 29,716 come from MeSH, and 4,402 are exclusive.

Cochrane CENTRAL

The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) is a database of reports of randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials. Most records are obtained from the bibliographic databases PubMed and Embase, with additional records from the published and unpublished sources of CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the WHO’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

Although CENTRAL first began publication in 1996, records are included irrespective of the date of publication, and the language of publication is also not a restriction to being included in the database.  You won’t find the full text to the article on CENTRAL but there is often a summary of the article, in addition to the standard details of author, source, and year.

Within CENTRAL, there are ‘Specialized Registers’ which are collected and maintained by Cochrane Review Groups (plus a few Cochrane Fields), which include reports of controlled trials relevant to their area of interest. Some Cochrane Centres search the general healthcare literature of their countries or regions in order to contribute records to CENTRAL.

ScienceDirect

ScienceDirect i s Elsevier’s most important peer-reviewed academic literature platform. It was launched in 1997 and contains 16 million records from over 2,500 journals, including over 250 Open Access publications, such as Cell Reports and The Lancet Global Health, as well as 39,000 eBooks.

ScienceDirect topics include:

  • health sciences;
  • life sciences;
  • physical sciences;
  • engineering;
  • social sciences; and
  • humanities.

Web of Science

Web of Science (previously Web of Knowledge) is an online scientific citation indexing service created in 1997 by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), and currently maintained by Clarivate Analytics.

Web of Science covers several fields of the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Its main resource is the Web of Science Core Collection which includes over 1 billion cited references dating back to 1900, indexed from 21,100 peer-reviewed journals, including Open Access journals, books and proceedings.

Web of Science also offers regional databases which cover:

  • Latin America (SciELO Citation Index);
  • China (Chinese Science Citation Database);
  • Korea (Korea Citation Index);
  • Russia (Russian Science Citation Index).

Boolean operators

To make the search more precise, we can use boolean operators in databases between our keywords.

We use boolean operators to focus on a topic, particularly when this topic contains multiple search terms, and to connect various pieces of information in order to find exactly what we are looking for.

Boolean operators connect the search words to either narrow or broaden the set of results. The three basic boolean operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.

  • AND narrows a search by telling the database that all keywords used must be found in the article in order for it to appear in our results.
  • OR broadens a search by telling the database that any of the words it connects are acceptable (this is useful when we are searching for synonymous words).
  • NOT narrows the search by telling the database to eliminate all terms that follow it from our search results (this is helpful when we are interested in a specific aspect of a topic or when we want to exclude a type of article.

References (pdf)

You may also be interested in the following blogs for further reading:

Conducting a systematic literature search

Reviewing the evidence: what method should I use?

Cochrane Crowd for students: what’s in it for you?

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A free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature

New & improved api for developers, introducing semantic reader in beta.

Stay Connected With Semantic Scholar Sign Up What Is Semantic Scholar? Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature, based at the Allen Institute for AI.

Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic research databases

best research databases

2. Web of Science

5. ieee xplore, 6. sciencedirect, 7. directory of open access journals (doaj), get the most out of your academic research database, frequently asked questions about academic research databases, related articles.

Whether you are writing a thesis , dissertation, or research paper it is a key task to survey prior literature and research findings. More likely than not, you will be looking for trusted resources, most likely peer-reviewed research articles.

Academic research databases make it easy to locate the literature you are looking for. We have compiled the top list of trusted academic resources to help you get started with your research:

Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Besides searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator .

  • Coverage: 90.6 million core records
  • References: N/A
  • Discipline: Multidisciplinary
  • Access options: Limited free preview, full access by institutional subscription only
  • Provider: Elsevier

Search interface of Scopus

Web of Science also known as Web of Knowledge is the second big bibliographic database. Usually, academic institutions provide either access to Web of Science or Scopus on their campus network for free.

  • Coverage: approx. 100 million items
  • References: 1.4 billion
  • Access options: institutional subscription only
  • Provider: Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters)

Web of Science landing page

PubMed is the number one resource for anyone looking for literature in medicine or biological sciences. PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than 30 million papers and provides full text links to the publisher sites or links to the free PDF on PubMed Central (PMC) .

  • Coverage: approx. 35 million items
  • Discipline: Medicine and Biological Sciences
  • Access options: free
  • Provider: NIH

Search interface of PubMed

For education sciences, ERIC is the number one destination. ERIC stands for Education Resources Information Center, and is a database that specifically hosts education-related literature.

  • Coverage: approx. 1.6 million items
  • Discipline: Education
  • Provider: U.S. Department of Education

Search interface of ERIC academic database

IEEE Xplore is the leading academic database in the field of engineering and computer science. It's not only journal articles, but also conference papers, standards and books that can be search for.

  • Coverage: approx. 6 million items
  • Discipline: Engineering
  • Provider: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

Search interface of IEEE Xplore

ScienceDirect is the gateway to the millions of academic articles published by Elsevier, 1.4 million of which are open access. Journals and books can be searched via a single interface.

  • Coverage: approx. 19.5 million items

Search interface of ScienceDirect

The DOAJ is an open-access academic database that can be accessed and searched for free.

  • Coverage: over 8 million records
  • Provider: DOAJ

Search interface of DOAJ database

JSTOR is another great resource to find research papers. Any article published before 1924 in the United States is available for free and JSTOR also offers scholarships for independent researchers.

  • Coverage: more than 12 million items
  • Provider: ITHAKA

Search interface of JSTOR

Start using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with PubMed and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

literature search engines list

Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Beside searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator .

PubMed is the number one resource for anyone looking for literature in medicine or biological sciences. PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than 30 million papers and provides full text links to the publisher sites or links to the free PDF on PubMed Central (PMC)

literature search engines list

Quick Start Research Toolkit

In this guide.

  • About the Quick Start Guide
  • Library Services
  • Find Books, Articles, Journals, etc.
  • Explore Databases and Search Engines
  • Write and Publish
  • Get Images for Presentations and Teaching
  • Keep Current
  • Clinical Point of Care Tools
  • Steps to Get Your Research off to a Good Start

Do you need help or have questions? There are several ways to get in contact with us:

Email icon

Database Searching

This section of the Quick Start Research Toolkit is designed to provide you with some tips for increasing the effectiveness of your search skills for a selected set of databases and search engines. However, this guide is not intended to offer a comprehensive tutorial on all aspects of searching or list all the databases that Lane subscribes to. Links to training for other databases are available via the tabs below. For assistance creating advanced searches, contact us via the Lane Library literature review intake form.

Databases and Search Engines

Google scholar, web of science.

  • Other Databases

PubMed is a freely accessible bibliographic database of over 30 million references to articles in the biomedical sciences. The PubMed search interface was substantially redesigned in May of 2020. Highlights include:

  • A new ranking algorithm, Best Match (see Figure 1)
  • Improved navigation that allows you to move from reference to reference and to different locations within a reference. (see Figure 2)
  • Optimized for use on mobile devices

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Figure 2:  1) Navigation arrows to move from one citation to the next; 2) links to the article via Lane's journal holdings; and 3) navigation options to move to different fields within the citation. 

Nav and Full Text Links

Quick Tips for Improving Your PubMed Searching Skills

Connecting to PubMed

Be sure to connect to PubMed from Lane Library's website in order to access Stanford content via the Full Text @ Lane Library Stanford  icon. (see Figure 2, above)

NCBI Accounts:

Create a new NCBI Account  to personalize your PubMed searching experience. You can colorize your search terms; set filters based on study types, (guidelines, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials), and even c reate alerts based on your search topic. To learn more, visit the  NIH guide to creating alerts.

Search Operators:

The key PubMed search operators are “AND,” “OR,” “NOT.” Putting the operators in upper case makes it easier to see the relationship of the search terms to one another. Note that PubMed process searches from left to right. Try clicking on the following examples in PubMed to see how the results change depending on the search operators you use.

  • bariatric AND obesity AND teens
  • bariatric AND obesity AND teens OR adolescents TOO MANY! What happened? PubMed searches from left to right, so this search retrieved the same number of references as search #1 and ANY   reference that mentions adolescents.
  • bariatric AND obesity AND (teens OR adolescents) Much better with parentheses! PubMed runs the search within the parentheses first before combining it with the terms outside the parentheses.

Search Tags:

Use PubMed field tags to search a specific field or fields within a reference; e.g., title, abstract, author keywords, medical subject headings, etc.. One of the advantages of using tags is that you  are in control of the search with a clear understanding of why you're "getting what you get." This is in contrast to PubMed's relevancy ranking algorithm  Best Match  where it's not always completely clear why a particular citation was retrieved. Click on the following searches to see how the results change depending on what fields you want to search.

  • simulation [ti] AND resuscitation [ti] 
  • simulation [tw] AND resuscitation [tw] AND pediatrics [tw] AND residents [tw] AND outcomes [tw]
  • "simulation training"[mesh] AND "resuscitation"[mesh] AND "pediatrics" [mesh]
  • A comprehensive list of PubMed field tags.

Search Strategies for Common Topics

CHILDREN/PEDIATRICS:

(infan* [tw] OR newborn* [tw] OR "new-born" [tw] OR "new borns" [tw] OR perinat* [tw] OR neonat* [tw] OR baby [tw] OR baby* [tw] OR babies [tw] OR toddler* [tw] OR minors [tw] OR child [tw] OR child* [tw] OR children* [tw] OR schoolchild* [tw] OR "school child" [tw] OR "school children" [tw] OR adolescen* [tw] OR juvenil* [tw] OR youth* [tw] OR teen* [tw] OR "under age" [tw] OR pubescen* [tw] OR prepubesc* [tw] OR pediatric* [tw] OR paediatric* [tw] OR "Nursery school" [tw] OR kindergar* [tw] OR "primary school" [tw] OR "secondary school" [tw] OR "elementary school" [tw] OR "high school" [tw] OR "primary schools" [tw] OR "secondary schools" [tw] OR "elementary school" [tw] OR "high schools" [tw] OR highschool* [tw] OR "infant" [mesh] OR "Child"[mesh] OR "Adolescent"[mesh] OR "Minors" [mesh] OR "Puberty" [mesh] OR "Pediatrics" [mesh] OR pediatrics)

For more advanced classes on PubMed visit Lane's upcoming classes page or the National Library of Medicine's tutorials site .

Google Scholar allows you to search the full-text of journal articles, conference papers, dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, technical reports, court opinions, patents, and other scholarly literature across all academic disciplines of research. Because you're searching full-text in Google Scholar, you can often identify relevant research that might otherwise be hidden in standard bibliographic databases, most of which only provide citation-level searching (titles, abstracts, author keywords, etc.). 

To access articles in Stanford-owned journals (including Lane Library and main campus libraries) be sure to set your library preferences to "Stanford" as shown in the following screenshots. 

Select Settings  from the upper left pull-down menu.

GS Settings

Select  Library Links  and run a search on Stanford. Select both Stanford links.

After running a search, 1) click on "<<" to display the Find it @ Stanford Med  and then click the link to access the article via Lane Library's collection; or 2) click on the Find it@Stanford to access the article from the main campus libraries' collection.  

literature search engines list

For more tips on how to search Google Scholar, visit the about G oogle Scholar page.  

While many searchers of Google simply type search terms into the search box, hit enter, and hope for the best, it's possible to run more effective searches using Google's advanced query options.

If you find yourself frustrated by a particular website's internal search engine, use Google’s site  option to search the website from within Google. All you need is your search terms, the URL for the site, and the search "tag"  site:  Note the colon that follows the word  site:  Click on the following search string to see the results

pediatric grand rounds site:stanford.edu

To search a broad internet domain such as .edu or .org or .com, simply use the domain suffix as the target of your search. Click on the following search string to see the results

guideline school reopening site:.org

To exclude a particular website or domain from your search, place a minus sign "-" in front of the URL. For example, if you want to exclude all .coms from your search, try the following:

peanut allergy -site:.com

filetype:pdf

Filetype:pdf is an extremely powerful way to supplement searches of traditional literature databases and search engines like PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Where Google Scholar searches the full text of scholarly literature, Google allows you to search the full text of a multitude of publication types, many of which might not be considered "scholarly" but are useful nonetheless. These publications could include federal and state reports; policy documents from think-tanks like Rand; training materials and syllabi from educational institutions; guidelines from medical societies; etc.

To tap into this huge corpus of information, use  filetype:pdf  preceded by your search terms.

adolescents obesity bariatric diabetes filetype:pdf

You can use additional filetypes as well,  e.g.,  ppt, docx,  etc. 

"sleep pods" residents filetype:ppt

For more information on how to search Google, visit the How to search on Google page.

Web of Science is a multidisciplinary database of over 10,000 high-impact journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities, as well as international proceedings coverage for over 120,000 conferences. Web of Science includes a variety of multidisciplinary databases, including CAB Abstracts and Global Health; Inspect (engineering); BIOSIS (life sciences); and Zoological Record (animal biology). 

In addition to covering all academic disciplines, Web of Science allows the search to re-sort the results of a search by  Times Cited.  Citation count is often an indicator of the relative impact of a particular research paper.

To search Web of Science, first, pick a particular database from the drop-down menu or  all  databases.

WOS

After running a search: 1) click on  Times Cited  to re-sort the results of your search from most to least cited; 2) view the number of times a paper has been cited; and 3) use the filters on the left of your search results to refine your search. 

WOS Filters

For more information on how to effectively search Web of Science, visit the WOS training and tutorials page.

Lane Medical Library and Stanford University Libraries have an extensive collection of hundreds of different literature databases. For help choosing the right database for your research topic, contact Lane Library for research help or submit a  literature search intake form . Below is a list of some additional, popular databases:

Cochrane Library : The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases including the Cochrane Database of systematic reviews and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Cochrane Library is often used in conjunction with other bibliographic databases when developing a systematic review. Cochrane Library training and tutorials . 

CINAHL  CINAHL: (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health) provides authoritative coverage of the literature related to nursing and allied health. CINAHL training and tutorials.

Embase : Embase is a powerful biomedical and pharmacological bibliographic database. Thorough searches of Embase are considered an integral part of most systematic reviews and metaanalyses. Embase training and tutorials.

Scopus : Scopus is a large multidisciplinary citation database of peer-reviewed literature in the life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences, and health sciences. Similar to Web of Science, the coverage is quite broad and the search results can be filtered by times cited. Scopus training and tutorials.

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Open Source Literature Review Search Tools: A list of search tools help you find open source articles

  • A list of search tools help you find open source articles
  • Free and open source software useful for open source literature reviews

Open source search tools

Use the search tools below to find open access articles, no cost academic search engines for published papers and preprints - comprehensive.

  • Bielefeld University’s Academic Search Engine (BASE) BASE is one of the world's most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources. BASE provides more than 240 million documents from more than 8,000 content providers. You can access the full texts of about 60% of the indexed documents for free (Open Access). BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library.
  • CORE CORE’s mission is to aggregate all open access research outputs from repositories and journals worldwide and make them available to the public. In this way CORE facilitates free unrestricted access to research for all.
  • Directory of Open Access Journals The DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) was launched in 2003 with 300 open access journals. Today, this independent database contains over 15 000 peer-reviewed open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities. Open access journals from all countries and in all languages are welcome to apply for inclusion.
  • Google Scholar Comprehensive, indexes academic information from various online web resources especially useful when used with one of the browser plugins such as Unpaywall
  • Microsoft Academic Research Use with one of browser extensions Such as Unpaywal. Microsoft Academic understands the meaning of words, it doesn’t just match keywords to content. For example, when you type “Microsoft,” it knows you mean the institution, and shows you publications authored by researchers affiliated with Microsoft. Similarly, Microsoft Academic knows journal titles, conference names, and many research topics. Try these queries to understand the power of semantic search and unleash it yourself!
  • OSF PrePrints (Center for Open Science) In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset version available free, before and/or after a paper is published in a journal.2,288,043 searchable as of November 25, 2020
  • ScienceOpen ScienceOpen is a discovery platform with interactive features for scholars to enhance their research in the open, make an impact, and receive credit for it. We provide context building services for publishers, to bring researchers closer to the content than ever before. Our advanced search and discovery functions, combined with post-publication peer review, recommendation, social sharing, and collection-building features make
  • Semantic Scholar (Allen  Institute)  A Free, AI-powered Tool for Navigating the Scientific Literature Search over 180 million papers across all fields of science
  • ResearchGate A social networking website for researchers. Contains more  than 100 million publication pages. 
  • The Multidisciplinary Preprint Platform A platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs available, including original research articles and  reviews

Specialty Open Access Platforms

  • Bioline International Bioline International is a not-for-profit scholarly publishing cooperative committed to providing open access to quality research journals published in developing countries. BI's goal of reducing the South to North knowledge gap is crucial to a global understanding of health (tropical medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology, emerging new diseases), biodiversity, the environment, conservation and international development. By providing a platform for the distribution of peer-reviewed journals (currently from Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, India, Iran, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda and Venezuela), BI helps to reduce the global knowledge divide by making bioscience information generated in these countries available to the international research community world-wide.
  • BioOne BioOne was established in 1999[2] in Washington, DC, as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization by five scholarly collaborators: the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC),[3] The University of Kansas, Greater Western Library Alliance, and Allen Press.
  • CERN Document Server Over 650,000 bibliographic records, including 320,000 fulltext documents, of interest to people working in particle physics and related areas. Covers preprints, articles, books, journals, photographs, and much more.
  • Cornell’s ArXiv arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for 1,799,152 scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Materials on this site are not peer-reviewed by arXiv. more... less... Open access to 1.3 million e‐prints in physics, mathematics,  computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and  economics. 
  • Educational Resources Information Center  (ERIC)  The ERIC Selection Policy establishes the standards and criteria for selecting materials for inclusion in the ERIC collection. It states broad collection goals and defines the standards and criteria required of approved sources and individual materials in the ERIC digital library. The purpose of the selection policy is to provide consistency in the approach for reviewing and selecting sources and individual items, and clearly communicate policy and process to staff, users, publishers, and individual submitter of material.
  • Mendeley (Elsevier) Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research:
  • Organic Eprints Organic Eprints is an international open access archive for papers and projects related to research in organic food and farming. The archive contains full-text papers in electronic form together with bibliographic information, abstracts and other metadata. It also offers information on organisations, projects and facilities in the context of organic farming research.
  • Penn State’s CiteSeerX CiteSeerx is an evolving scientific literature digital library and search engine that has focused primarily on the literature in computer and information science. CiteSeerx aims to improve the dissemination of scientific literature and to provide improvements in functionality, usability, availability, cost, comprehensiveness, efficiency, and timeliness in the access of scientific and scholarly knowledge. Rather than creating just another digital library, CiteSeerx attempts to provide resources such as algorithms, data, metadata, services, techniques, and software that can be used to promote other digital libraries. CiteSeerx has developed new methods and algorithms to index PostScript and PDF research articles on the Web.
  • PubMed PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintain the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval.
  • SSRN, formerly known as Social Science Research Network s a repository for preprints devoted to the rapid dissemination of scholarly research in the social sciences and humanities and more. Elsevier bought SSRN from Social Science Electronic Publishing Inc. in May 2016
  • U.S. government’s Science.gov Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2,200 scientific websites to provide users with access to more than 200 million pages of authoritative federal science information including research and development results.

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Best Academic Search Engines [2023]

Sumalatha G

Table of Contents

Gone are the days when researchers used to spend hours in the library skimming through endless reference books and resources. Now, thanks to academic search engines — with just a few clicks, researchers can access an extensive amount of information at their fingertips.

However, not all search engines are designed to make the research discovery process easier. It varies from one search engine to another, few might not have updated their database to the latest articles, while others might still provide older articles as a result of your search keyword or topic, and so on. This way, half of the researcher’s time is consumed shortlisting the best academic search engines.

Therefore, to help you choose the best search engine for academic research, we’ve crafted this blog. In this article, we will explore the best academic search engines available and why they are essential for scholars, researchers, and students alike.

Introduction to Academic Search Engines

Academic search engines are online repositories or databases that host millions of research articles and allow users to find relevant scholarly articles, research publications, conference proceedings, and other academic resources. Unlike web search engines like Google or Bing, these platforms are specifically designed to provide accurate, reliable, and relevant academic content.

These search engines often have advanced features that help users filter their search results based on specific criteria. For example, SciSpace helps you filter the results based on author, publication date, PDF, open-access, and more. In addition, it also provides citation information, abstracts, and full-text access to research papers and other scholarly literature, making them invaluable tools for scholars and researchers.

Academic search engines play a crucial role in the research process by providing scholars with easy access to relevant and reliable information. They save researchers valuable time by eliminating the need to sift through irrelevant search results and provide them with free access to a focused pool of academic resources.

With their advanced features and comprehensive coverage, these academic databases empower researchers to stay at the forefront of their fields and contribute to the advancement of knowledge.

Benefits of using reliable academic search engines for research

When it comes to academic research, using reliable search engines is of utmost importance. The credibility and quality of the sources you rely on can significantly impact the results of your research findings and conclusions.

Here are the potential advantages of using a popular search engine!

1. Reliable scholarly source: By using an academic search engine, researchers can ensure that the information they find is from reputable sources. These academic databases typically index content from scholarly journals, universities, research institutions, and other reliable and cited sources. As a result, the risk of using incorrect or biased information, which is prevalent on the open web, is significantly reduced.

2. Increased exposure to enormous articles: With a reliable academic search engine, you can access a vast array of scholarly articles and research publications. These search engines have extensive academic databases that include articles from various disciplines, including science and social sciences, allowing researchers to explore a wide range of topics and find relevant studies to support their research.

3. Advanced search filters: Reliable academic search engines often provide advanced search features that enable researchers to refine their search queries and narrow down the results to find the most relevant and latest information. These features may include filters for publication date, author, journal, and citation count, among others. By utilizing these advanced search terms and options, researchers can save time and effort by quickly finding the most pertinent resources.

4. Access full-text journal articles: Another advantage of using search engine for academic research is the ability to access full-text scientific articles. Many academic search engines provide direct links to the full text of articles, either freely available or through institutional subscriptions. This ensures that researchers can read and analyze the complete article, rather than relying on abstracts or TL;DR summaries.

5. Additional tools support: The most reliable search engines for research like SciSpace offer additional tools and features to enhance the research workflow. These may include citation generators, reference management systems, and options to save and organize search results. These tools can greatly facilitate the organization and the citation analysis of sources, making the research process more efficient and systematic.

Best search engines for research

Now that we’ve understood the importance of using reliable search engines for academic research, let's explore some of the best academic literature search engines available:

1. SciSpace

SciSpace

SciSpace is considered the best academic search engine that hosts and provides free access to a comprehensive index of 300 million+ scholarly articles from various fields. It utilizes advanced algorithms to provide users with highly relevant search results. Its intuitive and user-friendly interface makes it ideal for both novice and experienced researchers to navigate millions of research papers with no mess around.

One of the standout features of SciSpace is its “ Trace feature ” which allows users to find relevant research papers based on the preferred criteria including citation counts, related publications, references, authors, and more. It helps you land on the right research paper based on your preferences or research needs.

SciSpace is the only search engine that not only helps you discover relevant scholarly scientific literature but also allows you to read a research paper using its AI research assistant, conduct a literature review, and generate accurate citations for your research publications. It is an all-in-one platform that accelerates your research workflow with its AI-powered tools. You can explore all of them here

2. Google Scholar

Google-Scholar

Google Scholar is undoubtedly one of the popular search engines. With its vast database of scholarly literature, Google Scholar allows users to search for articles, theses, books, and conference papers across multiple academic disciplines. Google Scholar helps users save their search queries and set up email alerts for new publications in their field of interest. This ensures that researchers stay up-to-date with the latest developments in their respective fields.

PubMed

PubMed is a go-to academic search engine for those in the field of medicine and life sciences. Developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PubMed provides access to a vast collection of medicine, biomedical, health sciences, or literature, including journals, clinical trials, and scientific articles. Its meticulously curated articles makes it a trusted resource for medical professionals, scientists, researchers, and students alike.

Scopus

Scopus is a comprehensive database of science that covers a wide range of scholarly literature across multiple disciplines. It offers a vast collection of peer reviewed articles, including publications, conference papers, and patents. With its extensive coverage and powerful search capabilities, Scopus is a valuable tool for researchers looking to explore the latest developments in their respective fields.

JSTOR

JSTOR is a repository that provides access to a vast collection of academic journals, books, and primary sources. Its interdisciplinary approach makes it a valuable resource for researchers across various fields of study.

6. IEEE Xplore

IEEE Xplore

IEEE Xplore is a premier academic search engine for those in the fields of engineering, computer science, and technology. It provides access to a vast collection of technical articles, conference papers, and standards published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

IEEE Xplore is a treasure trove of knowledge for researchers and engineers looking to stay at the forefront of technological advancements.

Criteria for choosing the best academic search engine

With so many free academic search engines to choose from, it can be challenging to determine which one is the best fit for your research needs. Here are some criteria to consider when selecting an academic search engine:

  • Relevance: The search engine should provide highly relevant search results that are specific to your area of study.
  • Database size: A larger database gives you access to a broader range of scientific literature.
  • Advanced search capabilities: Look for search engines that offer advanced search filters, allowing you to refine your search based on specific criteria.
  • User-friendly interface: A user-friendly interface makes it easier for researchers to navigate and retrieve the information they need efficiently.
  • Accessibility: Consider the availability of full-text or PDF access to articles and the ease of obtaining the necessary permissions to cite or use the content.

In conclusion, academic search engines play a vital role in scholarly communication, facilitating efficient and reliable academic research. They provide scholars, researchers, and students with access to a vast array of scholarly articles, research papers, and other academic resources. By using the best academic search engines, researchers can ensure that their research is backed by evidence (accurate and trustworthy information).

While each search engine has its own unique features and strengths, the key is to choose the one that best aligns with your research needs and preferences. Remember to utilize advanced search filters, explore related articles and citations, and keep your research well-organized for maximum efficiency. As technology continues to advance, we can expect academic search engines to evolve and provide even more innovative solutions to the challenges faced in academic research.

So, embrace these powerful tools, explore the above-featured academic search engines, and let us know which tool you are clinging to!

Frequently Asked Questions

Google Scholar, SciSpace, PubMed, and JSTOR are widely used tools for academic research.

Academic search engineinvolves an in-depth examination of scholarly sources with a rigorous approach, while a Google search engine explores a wider range of web content, including non-academic sources, with varying levels of reliability.

They provide a comprehensive overview of existing research on diverse topics aiding researchers in conducting an efficient literature review without investing more time.

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Literature search for research planning and identification of research problem

Anju grewal.

Department of Anaesthesiology, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

Hanish Kataria

1 Department of Surgery, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India

2 Department of Cardiac Anaesthesia, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Literature search is a key step in performing good authentic research. It helps in formulating a research question and planning the study. The available published data are enormous; therefore, choosing the appropriate articles relevant to your study in question is an art. It can be time-consuming, tiring and can lead to disinterest or even abandonment of search in between if not carried out in a step-wise manner. Various databases are available for performing literature search. This article primarily stresses on how to formulate a research question, the various types and sources for literature search, which will help make your search specific and time-saving.

INTRODUCTION

Literature search is a systematic and well-organised search from the already published data to identify a breadth of good quality references on a specific topic.[ 1 ] The reasons for conducting literature search are numerous that include drawing information for making evidence-based guidelines, a step in the research method and as part of academic assessment.[ 2 ] However, the main purpose of a thorough literature search is to formulate a research question by evaluating the available literature with an eye on gaps still amenable to further research.

Research problem[ 3 ] is typically a topic of interest and of some familiarity to the researcher. It needs to be channelised by focussing on information yet to be explored. Once we have narrowed down the problem, seeking and analysing existing literature may further straighten out the research approach.

A research hypothesis[ 4 ] is a carefully created testimony of how you expect the research to proceed. It is one of the most important tools which aids to answer the research question. It should be apt containing necessary components, and raise a question that can be tested and investigated.

The literature search can be exhaustive and time-consuming, but there are some simple steps which can help you plan and manage the process. The most important are formulating the research questions and planning your search.

FORMULATING THE RESEARCH QUESTION

Literature search is done to identify appropriate methodology, design of the study; population sampled and sampling methods, methods of measuring concepts and techniques of analysis. It also helps in determining extraneous variables affecting the outcome and identifying faults or lacunae that could be avoided.

Formulating a well-focused question is a critical step for facilitating good clinical research.[ 5 ] There can be general questions or patient-oriented questions that arise from clinical issues. Patient-oriented questions can involve the effect of therapy or disease or examine advantage versus disadvantage for a group of patients.[ 6 ]

For example, we want to evaluate the effect of a particular drug (e.g., dexmedetomidine) for procedural sedation in day care surgery patients. While formulating a research question, one should consider certain criteria, referred as ‘FINER’ (F-Feasible, I-Interesting, N-Novel, E-Ethical, R-Relevant) criteria.[ 5 ] The idea should be interesting and relevant to clinical research. It should either confirm, refute or add information to already done research work. One should also keep in mind the patient population under study and the resources available in a given set up. Also the entire research process should conform to the ethical principles of research.

The patient or study population, intervention, comparison or control arm, primary outcome, timing of measurement of outcome (PICOT) is a well-known approach for framing a leading research question.[ 7 , 8 ] Dividing the questions into key components makes it easy and searchable. In this case scenario:

  • Patients (P) – What is the important group of patients? for example, day care surgery
  • Intervention (I) – What is the important intervention? for example, intravenous dexmedetomidine
  • Comparison (C) – What is the important intervention of comparison? for example, intravenous ketamine
  • Outcome (O) – What is the effect of intervention? for example, analgesic efficacy, procedural awareness, drug side effects
  • Time (T) – Time interval for measuring the outcome: Hourly for first 4 h then 4 hourly till 24 h post-procedure.

Multiple questions can be formulated from patient's problem and concern. A well-focused question should be chosen for research according to significance for patient interest and relevance to our knowledge. Good research questions address the lacunae in available literature with an aim to impact the clinical practice in a constructive manner. There are limited outcome research and relevant resources, for example, electronic database system, database and hospital information system in India. Even when these factors are available, data about existing resources is not widely accessible.[ 9 ]

TYPES OF MEDICAL LITERATURE

(Further details in chapter ‘Types of studies and research design’ in this issue).

Primary literature

Primary sources are the authentic publication of an expert's new evidence, conclusions and proposals (case reports, clinical trials, etc) and are usually published in a peer-reviewed journal. Preliminary reports, congress papers and preprints also constitute primary literature.[ 2 ]

Secondary literature

Secondary sources are systematic review articles or meta-analyses where material derived from primary source literature are infererred and evaluated.[ 2 ]

Tertiary literature

Tertiary literature consists of collections that compile information from primary or secondary literature (eg., reference books).[ 2 ]

METHODS OF LITERATURE SEARCH

There are various methods of literature search that are used alone or in combination [ Table 1 ]. For past few decades, searching the local as well as national library for books, journals, etc., was the usual practice and still physical literature exploration is an important component of any systematic review search process.[ 10 , 11 ] With the advancement of technology, the Internet is now the gateway to the maze of vast medical literature.[ 12 ] Conducting a literature review involves web-based search engines, i.e., Google, Google Scholar, etc., [ Table 2 ], or using various electronic research databases to identify materials that describe the research topic or those homologous to it.[ 13 , 14 ]

Methods of literature search

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Object name is IJA-60-635-g001.jpg

Web based methods of literature search

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The various databases available for literature search include databases for original published articles in the journals [ Table 2 ] and evidence-based databases for integrated information available as systematic reviews and abstracts [ Table 3 ].[ 12 , 14 ] Most of these are not freely available to the individual user. PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ ) is the largest available resource since 1996; however, a large number of sources now provide free access to literature in the biomedical field.[ 15 ] More than 26 million citations from Medline, life science journals and online books are included in PubMed. Links to the full-text material are included in citations from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.[ 16 ] The choice of databases depends on the subject of interest and potential coverage by the different databases. Education Resources Information Centre is a free online digital library of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, available at http://eric.ed.gov/ . No one database can search all the medical literature. There is need to search several different databases. At a minimum, PubMed or Medline, Embase and the Cochrane central trials Registry need to be searched. When searching these databases, emphasis should be given to meta-analysis, systematic reviews randomised controlled trials and landmark studies.

Electronic source of Evidence-Based Database

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Time allocated to the search needs attention as exploring and selecting data are early steps in the research method and research conducted as part of academic assessment have narrow timeframes.[ 17 ] In Indian scenario, limited outcome research and accessibility to data leads to less thorough knowledge of nature of research problem. This results in the formulation of the inappropriate research question and increases the time to literature search.

TYPES OF SEARCH

Type of search can be described in different forms according to the subject of interest. It increases the chances of retrieving relevant information from a search.

Translating research question to keywords

This will provide results based on any of the words specified; hence, they are the cornerstone of an effective search. Synonyms/alternate terms should be considered to elicit further information, i.e., barbiturates in place of thiopentone. Spellings should also be taken into account, i.e., anesthesia in place of anaesthesia (American and British). Most databases use controlled word-stock to establish common search terms (or keywords). Some of these alternative keywords can be looked from database thesaurus.[ 4 ] Another strategy is combining keywords with Boolean operators. It is important to keep a note of keywords and methods used in exploring the literature as these will need to be described later in the design of search process.

‘Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) is the National Library of Medicine's controlled hierarchical vocabulary that is used for indexing articles in PubMed, with more specific terms organised underneath more general terms’.[ 17 ] This provides a reliable way to retrieve citations that use different terminology for identical ideas, as it indexes articles based on content. Two features of PubMed that can increase yield of specific articles are ‘Automatic term mapping’ and ‘automatic term explosion’.[ 4 ]

For example, if the search keyword is heart attack, this term will match with MeSH transcription table heading and then explode into various subheadings. This helps to construct the search by adding and selecting MeSH subheadings and families of MeSH by use of hyperlinks.[ 4 ]

We can set limits to a clinical trial for retrieving higher level of evidence (i.e., randomised controlled clinical trial). Furthermore, one can browse through the link entitled ‘Related Articles’. This PubMed feature searches for similar citations using an intricate algorithm that scans titles, abstracts and MeSH terms.[ 4 ]

Phrase search

This will provide pages with only the words typed in the phrase, in that exact order and with no words in between them.

Boolean operators

AND, OR and NOT are the three Boolean operators named after the mathematician George Boole.[ 18 ] Combining two words using ‘AND’ will fetch articles that mention both the words. Using ‘OR’ will widen the search and fetch more articles that mention either subject. While using the term ‘NOT’ to combine words will fetch articles containing the first word but not the second, thus narrowing the search.

Filters can also be used to refine the search, for example, article types, text availability, language, age, sex and journal categories.

Overall, the recommendations for methodology of literature search can be as below (Creswell)[ 19 ]

  • Identify keywords and use them to search articles from library and internet resources as described above
  • Search several databases to search articles related to your topic
  • Use thesaurus to identify terms to locate your articles
  • Find an article that is similar to your topic; then look at the terms used to describe it, and use them for your search
  • Use databases that provide full-text articles (free through academic libraries, Internet or for a fee) as much as possible so that you can save time searching for your articles
  • If you are examining a topic for the first time and unaware of the research on it, start with broad syntheses of the literature, such as overviews, summaries of the literature on your topic or review articles
  • Start with the most recent issues of the journals, and look for studies about your topic and then work backward in time. Follow-up on references at the end of the articles for more sources to examine
  • Refer books on a single topic by a single author or group of authors or books that contain chapters written by different authors
  • Next look for recent conference papers. Often, conference papers report the latest research developments. Contact authors of pertinent studies. Write or phone them, asking if they know of studies related to your area of interest
  • The easy access and ability to capture entire articles from the web make it attractive. However, check these articles carefully for authenticity and quality and be cautious about whether they represent systematic research.

The whole process of literature search[ 20 ] is summarised in Figure 1 .

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Process of literature search

Literature search provides not only an opportunity to learn more about a given topic but provides insight on how the topic was studied by previous analysts. It helps to interpret ideas, detect shortcomings and recognise opportunities. In short, systematic and well-organised research may help in designing a novel research.

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Knowing what has already been established within the field is the first step in any research project. So all researchers need to combine an in-depth understanding of their topic with a broad awareness of the discipline at large to push the boundaries of existing knowledge.

But reconceptualising volumes of peer-reviewed literature over extended periods of time is not a straightforward process. How can academic search engines (ASEs) help streamline a literature search and allow researchers to better formulate insightful research questions?

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What is an academic search engine?

Academic search engines aim to combine the convenience and power of web-based search engines with the rigour of peer-reviewed scholarly sources. In contrast to traditional academic databases, which often sit behind a paywall, most ASEs are freely accessible and often link to full-text research articles. ASE searches return publications that are sorted by topic and significance in the field, with the most frequently cited publications appearing higher in the list by default. Researchers can strategically use ASEs to compile an expansive bibliography and streamline the literature review process.

How do academic search engines work?

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. The metadata generated by the search engine algorithms (and in some cases artificial intelligence tools) can be used to find networks of related articles, all of which can be saved into customisable reading lists or batch exported into reference management software.

What is the best academic search engine for your needs?

ASEs with a broad multidisciplinary focus will naturally have the biggest database of sources, and Google Scholar has traditionally been the leader on this front. Other ASEs are all playing catch-up, but Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) , Semantic Scholar and Refseek have all expanded the number of documents hosted within their databases. To generate metadata for millions of sources, Google Scholar harnesses the ubiquity of Google’s web-crawling algorithm, while Semantic Scholar uses AI-driven techniques. The proprietary nature of these tools can limit transparency and user control, and the iterative nature of these tools can compromise search reproducibility. In fact, even consecutive queries using identical search terms in Google Scholar may yield inconsistent results . In contrast, BASE uses an internationally standardised protocol for harvesting metadata while disclosing their list of content providers , and may be better suited for meta-analyses or systematic literature reviews.

While ASEs are typically free for end users, the availability of full-text research articles can be quite limited. CORE mitigates this by hosting only articles published in open access journals, but that may not be a viable option for your topic.

Access to ASEs may also vary depending on your location – for instance, Google is blocked or censored in some parts of the world – and it can be difficult to rely on ASEs as their only literature search tool. The ASE landscape can be quite volatile overall, with Microsoft Academic – the previous main competitor to Google Scholar – shutting down its operations in 2021 . The best approach may still be to pair an ASE with a more traditional academic database (such as Web of Science or Scopus ) along with databases specifically tailored for your discipline ( ERIC , SSRN , Pubmed , CiteseerX ).

Top search tips

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.

A common search mistake is not incorporating Boolean operators into your search strategy. Google Scholar, for example, uses the following Boolean operators:

  • AND limits results by only returning articles that are relevant to all the search terms (for example, learning AND teachers)
  • OR expands your results by returning articles relevant to either of the search terms (for example, learning OR teachers)
  • The minus sign (-) limits results by excluding keywords (so, learning -teachers)
  • -site excludes results from a website (teachers -site:wikipedia.org)
  • ~ expands your results by including synonyms for the key term in the search (~teachers)
  • “” limits your results by only showing articles with the exact phrasing (“professional learning for teachers”).

Making it work

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 paper you are writing, and quickly share these reference lists with your co-authors to speed up the final copy-editing process. 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. ASEs can be used strategically to improve the public accessibility of academic literature and to help you form new collaborations.

Jack Wang is an associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at the University of Queensland. He was awarded 2020 Australian University Teacher of the Year.

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  • Published: 25 February 2011

In search of the right literature search engine(s)

  • Akhilesh Bajpai 1 ,
  • Sravanthi Davuluri 1 ,
  • Haritha Haridas 1 ,
  • Greta Kasliwal 1 ,
  • Deepti H 2 ,
  • Sreelakshmi KS 1 ,
  • Darshan Chandrashekar 2 ,
  • Pranami Bora 1 ,
  • Mohammed Farouk 1 ,
  • Neelima Chitturi 1 ,
  • Samudyata V 2 ,
  • ArunNehru KP 3 &
  • Kshitish Acharya 2  

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Collecting scientific publications related to a specific topic is crucial for different phases of research, health care and ‘effective text mining’. Available bio-literature search engines vary in their ability to scan different sections of articles, for the user-provided search terms and/or phrases. Since a thorough scientific analysis of all major bibliographic tools has not been done, their selection has often remained subjective. We have considered most of the existing bio-literature search engines (http://www.shodhaka.com/startbioinfo/LitSearch.html) and performed an extensive analysis of 18 literature search engines, over a period of about 3 years. Eight different topics were taken and about 50 searches were performed using the selected search engines. The relevance of retrieved citations was carefully assessed after every search, to estimate the citation retrieval efficiency. Different other features of the search tools were also compared using a semi-quantitative method.

The study provides the first tangible comparative account of relative retrieval efficiency, input and output features, resource coverage and a few other utilities of the bio-literature search tools. The results show that using a single search tool can lead to loss of up to 75% relevant citations in some cases. Hence, use of multiple search tools is recommended. But, it would also not be practical to use all or too many search engines. The detailed observations made in the study can assist researchers and health professionals in making a more objective selection among the search engines. A corollary study revealed relative advantages and disadvantages of the full-text scanning tools.*Conclusion*While many studies have attempted to compare literature search engines, important questions remained unanswered till date. Following are some of those questions, along with answers provided by the current study:a) Which tools should be used to get the maximum number of relevant citations with a reasonable effort? ANSWER: _Using PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar and HighWire Press individually, and then compiling the hits into a union list is the best option. Citation-Compiler (http://www.shodhaka.com/compiler) can help to compile the results from each of the recommended tool._b) What is the approximate percentage of relevant citations expected to be lost if only one search engine is used? ANSWER: _About 39% of the total relevant citations were lost in searches across 4 topics; 49% hits were lost while using PubMed or HighWire Press, while 37% and 20% loss was noticed while using Google Scholar and Scopus, respectively._c) Which full text search engines can be recommended in general? ANSWER: HighWire Press and Google Scholar. d) Among the mostly used search engines, which one can be recommended for best precision? ANSWER: EBIMed. e) Among the mostly used search engines, which one can be recommended for best recall? ANSWER: Depending on the type of query used, best recall could be obtained by HighWire Press or Scopus.

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Akhilesh Bajpai, Sravanthi Davuluri, Haritha Haridas, Greta Kasliwal, Sreelakshmi KS, Pranami Bora, Mohammed Farouk & Neelima Chitturi

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Deepti H, Darshan Chandrashekar, Samudyata V & Kshitish Acharya

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Bajpai, A., Davuluri, S., Haridas, H. et al. In search of the right literature search engine(s). Nat Prec (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2011.2101.3

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literature search engines list

How to undertake a literature search: a step-by-step guide

Affiliation.

  • 1 Literature Search Specialist, Library and Archive Service, Royal College of Nursing, London.
  • PMID: 32279549
  • DOI: 10.12968/bjon.2020.29.7.431

Undertaking a literature search can be a daunting prospect. Breaking the exercise down into smaller steps will make the process more manageable. This article suggests 10 steps that will help readers complete this task, from identifying key concepts to choosing databases for the search and saving the results and search strategy. It discusses each of the steps in a little more detail, with examples and suggestions on where to get help. This structured approach will help readers obtain a more focused set of results and, ultimately, save time and effort.

Keywords: Databases; Literature review; Literature search; Reference management software; Research questions; Search strategy.

  • Databases, Bibliographic*
  • Information Storage and Retrieval / methods*
  • Nursing Research
  • Review Literature as Topic*

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Science Insight

World’s Top 11 search-engines of Scholarly literature

List of most popular search engines of scientific papers and research articles..

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What was your primary source of information during your undergraduate studies? Wikipedia? Google?

Aah, they are not going to work especially if you are planning to go for Masters of PhD studies or are already enrolled in one of the masters or doctoral program in your university. At higher stage of learning, more robust, more scientific and more reliable databases of knowledge are needed. Let us share with you Top 8 databases in the world which are serving millions of postgraduate students, professors and scientists around the world.

literature search engines list

  • Google Scholar

Perhaps the most widely known search-engine to look for papers in the world is Google Scholar , which is so popular that hardly any postgraduate can claim being unaware of it. 

Google Scholar ( scholar.google.com ) is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online academic journals and books, conference papers, theses and dissertations, preprints, abstracts, technical reports, and other scholarly literature, including court opinions and patents. While Google does not publish the size of Google Scholar’s database, scientometric researchers estimated it to contain roughly 389 million documents including articles, citations and patents making it the world’s largest academic search engine in January 2018. Previously, the size was estimated at 160 million documents as of May 2014. An earlier statistical estimate published in PLOS ONE using a Mark and recapture method estimated approximately 80–90% coverage of all articles published in English with an estimate of 100 million. This estimate also determined how many documents were freely available on the web.

literature search engines list

  • Crossref Search

Crossref is an international body that assigns Digital Object Identifier. All publications with DOI numbers assigned by Crossref can be searched in its databases. Thus the database of Crossref ( search.crossref.org ) is a rich resource of finding research papers.

literature search engines list

Scopus  ( scopus.com/search/form.uri ) is not ScienceDirect but is being run by Elsevier. It is most powerful search engine after Google Scholar. Scopus is an index and by searching within Scopus you would find all papers that are indexed in Scopus. It’s outreach is broader than that of Elsevier as you can find literature from other publishers as well in it.

literature search engines list

  • ScienceDirect

It should be noted here that except GoogleScholar and XueshuBaidu  all search-engines listed here belong to certain publishers. Thus, when you would search within them, you are searching in the database of scholarly articles and books being published by these publishers.

ScienceDirect.com  is one of the most popular databases, owned by Elsevier. Elsevier is a Dutch information and analytics company and one of the world’s major providers of scientific, technical, and medical information. It was established in 1880 as a publishing company. It is a part of the RELX Group, known until 2015 as Reed Elsevier. Its products include journals such as The Lancet and Cell, the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, the Trends and Current Opinion series of journals, the online citation database Scopus, and the ClinicalKey solution for clinicians. Elsevier’s products and services include the entire academic research lifecycle, including software and data-management, instruction and assessment tools.

All literature available at ScienceDirect is at least indexed in Scopus and at most  in Ei Compendex, SCI, SCIE, SSCI, ESCI etc.

literature search engines list

Wiley Online Library ( https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ ) is owned by John Wiley & Sons, Inc, which is one of the famous publishers of scientific and academic works. This search engine would allow you to explore within all journals by Wiley. From 2021, Hindawi publishing group is also owned by Wiley.

literature search engines list

  • IEEE Xplore

IEEE Xplore ( ieeexplore.ieee.org ) is one of the favorite search engines of the scholars from engineering and technical disciplines.

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IEEE Xplore is owned by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). IEEE is a professional association with its corporate office in New York City and its operations center in Piscataway, New Jersey. It was formed in 1963 from the amalgamation of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Institute of Radio Engineers. IEEE claims to be the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.

All literature available at IEEE Xplore may not be necessarily indexed in Ei Compendex database however most of the publications by IEEE are at least indexed in Ei Compendex. Ei Compendex is the broadest and most complete engineering literature database available in the world. It provides a truly holistic and global view of peer reviewed and indexed publications with over 20 million records from 77 countries across 190 engineering disciplines. Overall, the literature in IEEE Xplore may be indexed in various popular databases including Ei Compendex, Scopus, SCI, SCIE, SSCI, ESCI etc.

literature search engines list

  • SpringerLink

SpringerLink ( link.springer.com ) is one of the most important search engines among the scholars from various disciplines. It is owned by Springer Nature. Springer Nature is an academic publishing company created by the May 2015 merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group’s Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Macmillan Education.

SpringerLink provides researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works and proceedings. Literature in SpringerLink may be indexed in various popular databases including Ei Compendex, Scopus, SCI, SCIE, SSCI, ESCI etc.

literature search engines list

Scilit ( www.scilit.net ) is one of the modern search engines for searching scholarly publications from various disciplines. Scilit is owned by MDPI. MDPI is an organisational acronym used by two related organisations, Molecular Diversity Preservation International and Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, which were both co-founded by Shu-Kun Lin. The first organisation, Molecular Diversity Preservation International, founded in 1996, is primarily a chemical sample archive, with some scholarly publishing and conference activities. The second organisation, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, was founded in 2010, primarily as a publisher. As of 2018 MDPI publishes 213 academic journals, including 37 that have received an impact factor.

Scilit search engine not just searches in the databases of MDPI publications but in the databases of other publishers as well. Thus, unlike ScienceDirect, IEEEXplore and SpringerLink, it is more comprehensive search-engine and can be compared with GoogleScholar and XueshuBaidu.

Scilit provides researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works and proceedings. Literature in Scilit may be indexed in various popular databases including Scopus, SCI, SCIE, SSCI, ESCI, Ei Compendex and some other, relatively unpopular, databases etc.

literature search engines list

  • Emerald Insight

Recently, Emerald Insight, one of the most famous publishers of scholarly literature has launched its own search-engine. Emerald Publishing Limited is a scholarly publisher of academic journals and books in the fields of management, business, education, library studies, health care, and engineering. It was founded in the United Kingdom in 1967 and has its headquarters in Bingley.

According to their official website, Emerald publishes monographs, handbooks, serials and professional texts across business and social science championing new ideas that would advance research and practice. Emerald Insight  ( emerald.com/insight ) is likely to provide scholars with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works and proceedings published by Emerald Insight.  Currently, the site is being run as pilot project however it is expected to be launched soon after some trials. Literature in Emerald Insight  may be indexed in various popular databases including Ei Compendex, Scopus, SCI, SCIE, SSCI, ESCI etc.

literature search engines list

  • XueshuBaidu

Have your ever found your Chinese lab-mates or colleges, searching on a very unique search – engine that you had never heard about? Yes, that’s XueshuBaidu (xueshu.baidu.com), a Chinese alternative to GoogleScholar and equally rich in terms of its access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works and proceedings. It is owned by Baidu Inc., a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence, headquartered in Beijing’s Haidian District. It is one of the largest AI and internet companies in the world.

All literature available at XueshuBaidu may not be necessarily indexed in CNKI database however most of the publications are at least indexed in CNKI database. CNKI is a key national information construction project under the lead of Tsinghua University, and supported by PRC Ministry of Education, PRC Ministry of Science, Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China and PRC General Administration of Press and Publication. This project was firstly launched in 1996 by Tsinghua University and Tsinghua Tongfang Company. The first database was China Academic Journals Full-text Database, which became popular in China rapidly, especially in academic libraries. In 1999, CNKI started to develop online databases. Till now, CNKI has built a comprehensive China Integrated Knowledge Resources System, including journals, doctoral dissertations, masters’ theses, proceedings, newspapers, yearbooks, statistical yearbooks, ebooks, patents, standards and so on. 10 services centers have been set in Beijing, North America, Japan, North Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. And it is widely used by universities, research institutes, governments, think tanks, companies, hospitals and public libraries.  Overall, the literature in XueshuBaidu may be indexed in various popular databases including Ei Compendex, Scopus, SCI, SCIE, SSCI, ESCI, Ei Compendex etc.

literature search engines list

  • Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis ( www.tandfonline.com ) owns rich literature on almost every topic.  Overall, the literature in T & F may be indexed in various popular databases including Ei Compendex, Scopus, SCI, SCIE, SSCI, ESCI, Ei Compendex etc.

literature search engines list

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Systematic Reviews: Medical Literature Databases to search

  • Types of literature review, methods, & resources
  • Protocol and registration
  • Search strategy
  • Medical Literature Databases to search
  • Study selection and appraisal
  • Data Extraction/Coding/Study characteristics/Results
  • Reporting the quality/risk of bias
  • Manage citations using RefWorks This link opens in a new window
  • GW Box file storage for PDF's This link opens in a new window

How to document your literature search

You should always  document how you have searched each database, what keywords or index terms were used, the date on which the search was performed, how many results you retrieved, and if you use RefWorks to deduplicate results record how many were removed as duplicates and the final number of discrete studies you subjected to your first sift through of study selection.  Here is an example of how to document a literature search on an Excel spreadsheet , this example records a search of the hematology literature for articles about sickle cell disease. Here is another example of  how to document a literature search, this time on one page of a Word document , this example records a search of the medical literature for a poster on Emergency Department throughput.  The numbers recorded can then be used to populate the PRISMA flow diagram summarizing the literature search.

In the final report add as an appendix the full electronic search strategy for each database searched for the literature review e.g. MEDLINE with MeSH terms, keywords & limits

In the final report in the methods section:

PRISMA checklist Item 7 information sources will be reported as:

  • What databases/websites you searched, the name of the database search platform and the start/end dates the index covers if relevant e.g. OVID MEDLINE (1950-present, or just PubMed
  • Who developed & conducted the searches
  • Date each database/website was last searched
  • Supplementary sources - what other websites did you search? What journal titles were hand searched, whether reference lists were checked, what trial registries or regulatory agency websites were searched, were manufacturers or other authors contacted to obtain unpublished or missing information on study methods or results.

PRISMA checklist Item 8 search will be reported as:

  • In text: describe the principal keywords used to search databases, websites & trials registers

What databases/indexes should you search?

At a minimum you need to search MEDLINE ,  EMBASE , and the  Cochrane CENTRAL  trials register .  This is the recommendation of three medical and public health research organizations: the U.S.  Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality ( AHRQ ), the U.K. Centre for Reviews and Dissemination ( CRD ), and the International Cochrane Collaboration (Source:  Institute of Medicine (2011) Finding What Works in Healthcare: Standards for Systematic Reviews  Table E-1, page 267).  Some databases have an alternate version, linked in parentheses below, that search the same records sets, ie the content of MEDLINE is in PubMed and Scopus, while the content of EMBASE is in Scopus. You should reformat your search for each database as appropriate, contact your librarian if you want help on how to search each database.  

Begin by searching:

1.        MEDLINE  (or  PubMed )

2.       EMBASE (or  Scopus )  Please note Himmelfarb Library does not have a subscription to EMBASE. The content is in the Scopus  database that you can search using keywords, but it is not possible to perform an EMTREE theasaurus search in Scopus.

3.        Cochrane Central Trials Register  (or  Cochrane Library ). In addition Cochrane researchers recommend you search the clinicaltrials.gov and ICTRP clinical trial registries due to the low sensitivity of the Cochrane CENTRAL index because according to Hunter et al (2022) "register records as they appear in CENTRAL are less comprehensive than the original register entry, and thus are at a greater risk than other systems of being missed in a search."

The Polyglot Search Translator is a very useful tool for translating search strings from PubMed or Medline via Ovid across multiple databases, developed by the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare at Bond University. But please note Polyglot does not automatically map subject terms across databases (e.g. MeSH terms to Emtree terms) so you will need to manually edit the search syntax in a text editor to change to the actual subject terms used by another database.

The Yale Mesh Analyzer is another very useful tool you can copy and paste in a list of up to 20 PMID numbers for records in the PubMed database, the Yale Mesh Analyzer will then display the Mesh Medical Subject Headings for those 20 articles as a table so you can identify and compare what Mesh headings they have in common, this can suggest additional search terms for your PubMed search.

The MedSyntax tool is another useful tool, for parsing out very long searches with many levels of brackets. This would be useful if you are trying to edit a pre-existing search strategy with many levels of parentheses.

Some sources for pre-existing database search filters or "hedges" include:

  • CADTH Search Filters Database ,
  • McMaster University Health Information Research Unit ,
  • University of York Centre for Reviews and Dissemination InterTASC Information Specialists' Sub-Group ,
  • InterTASC Population Specific search filters  (particularly useful for identifying Latinx, Indigenous people's, LGBTQ, Black & Minority ethnic)
  • CareSearch Palliative Care PubMed search filters  (bereavement, dementia, heart failure, lung cancer, cost of care, and Palliative Care)
  • Low and Middle Income countries filter at https://epoc.cochrane.org/lmic-filters . 
  • Search Pubmed for another validated search filter using some variation of a search like this, possibly adding your discipline or search topic keywords: ("Databases, Bibliographic"[Mesh] OR "Search Engine"[Mesh]) AND ("Reproducibility of Results"[Mesh] OR "Sensitivity and Specificity"[Mesh] OR validat*) AND (filter OR hedge) .
  • Search MEDLINE (or PubMed), preferably using a peer reviewed search strategy per protocol and apply any relevant methodology filters.
  • Search EMBASE (or Scopus) and the Cochrane Central trials register using appropriately reformatted search versions for those databases, and any other online resources. 
  • You should also search other subject specific databases that index the literature in your field.  Use our Himmelfarb Library  research guides  to identify other  subject specific databases . 
  • Save citations in Covidence to deduplicate citations prior to screening.
  • After screening export citations to  RefWorks database when you are ready to write up your manuscript. The Covidence and Refworks databases should be shared with all members of the investigative team.

Supplementary resources to search

Other member of your investigative team may have ideas about databases, websites, and journals they think you should search. Searching these sources is not required to perform a systematic review. You may need to reformat your search keywords.

Researchers at GW should check our subject research guides for suggestions, or check the libguides community for a guide on your subject.

In addition you may wish to search one or more of the following resources:

  • Google Scholar
  • BASE  academic search engine is useful for searching in University Institutional Repositories
  • Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews  to search for a pre-existing systematic review on your topic
  • Epistemonikos database, has a matrix of evidence table so you can see what citations are shared in common across existing systematic reviews of the same topic. This feature might help identify sentinel or 'don't miss' articles.

You might also consider searching one or more of the following websites depending on your topic:

Clinical trial registers. The Cochrane Collaboration recommends for a systematic review to search both clinicaltrials.gov and the WHO ICTRP (See http://handbook.cochrane.org/ section 4.3):

  • ClinicalTrials.gov  - also contains study population characteristics and results data of FDA regulated drugs and medical devices in NIH funded studies produced after January 18, 2017.
  • WHO ICTRP  - trials register
  • TRIP  - searchable index of clinical trials, guidelines,and regulatory guidance
  • CenterWatch
  • Current Controlled Trials
  • European Clinical Trials Register
  • ISRCTN Register
  • COMPARE - tracks outcome switching in clinical trials
  • OpenTrials - aims to match published trials with the underlying data where this is publicly available in an open source 
  • ECRI Guidelines Trust

Grey literature resources:

  • WONDER - CDC data and reports
  • FDSys - search federal government publications
  • Science.gov
  • NRR Archive
  • NIH Reporter
  • re3data registry of data repositories
  • Data Repositories (listed by the Simmons Open Access Directory)
  • OpenDOAR  search academic open access research repositories
  • f1000research search open access repositories of articles, slides, and research posters, in the life sciences, public health, education, and communication.
  • RAND Health Reports
  • National Academy of Medicine Publications
  • Kaiser Family Foundation 
  • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health and medical care data archive
  • Milbank Memorial Fund reports and issue briefs
  • Also search the resources listed in the CADTH (2019) Grey Matters checklist.

Preprints 

  • See our Himmelfarb preprints guide page on finding preprints , a useful database for searching Health Sciences preprints is  Europe PMC

Dissertations and Theses:

  • Proquest Dissertations and Theses Online 
  • Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
  • Open Access Theses and Dissertations
  • WorldCat and change Content: from Any Content to Thesis/dissertations

Conference proceedings:

Most conference proceedings are difficult to find because they may or may not be published. Only select individual papers may be made available in print as a book, journal, or series, rather than all of the presented items. Societies and Associations may only publish abstracts, or extended abstracts, from a conference, often in an annual supplement to an issue of the journal of record of that professional society.  Often posters are not published, if they are they may be made available only to other conference registrants at that meeting or online. Authors may "publish" their conference papers or posters on personal or institutional websites.  A limited set of conference proceedings databases include the following:

  • BASE  academic search engine, has an Advanced Search feature with a Limit by Type to 'Conference Objects', this is useful for searching for conference posters and submissions stored in University Institutional Repositories.
  • Web of Science - click All Databases and select Core Collection - under More Settings limit to the Conference Proceedings Citation Index (CPCI) - searches a limited set of conferences on Science, Social Science and Humanities from 1990-present.
  • Scopus - Limit Document Type to Conference Paper or Conference Review.
  • Proquest  - Limit search results to conference papers &/or proceedings under Advanced Search.
  • BioMed Central Proceedings  - searches a limited set of biomedical conference proceedings, including bioinformatics, genetics, medical students, and data visualization.
  • F1000 Research - browse by subject and click the tabs for articles, posters, and slides - which searches a limited number of biology and medical society meetings/conferences. This is a voluntary self-archive repository.

Individual Journals 

  • You may choose to "hand search" select journals where the research team reads the Table of Contents of each issue for a chosen period of time.  You can look for the names of high impact journal titles in a particular field indexed in Journal Citation Reports  (JCR). Please note as of August 2021 ISI are linking to a new version of JCR that currently does not have the particularly helpful 'Browse by Category' link working, so I recommend you click the Products link in the top right corner and select Journal Citation Reports (Classic) to switch back to the old version to get that functionality back.
  • The AllTrials petition aims to motivate health care researchers to petition regulators and research bodies to require the results and data of all clinical trials be published.
  • << Previous: Search strategy
  • Next: Study selection and appraisal >>

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Relevant Medical Databases And Search Engines For Periodic Literature Screening

literature search engines list

New Medical Device Regulation: Implications for Medical Device Manufacturers

Are you looking to collect evidence for your medical writing projects? If the answer is YES, then you should always bank upon the most recent and trustworthy sources.

A medical literature search engine is a centralized browser-based platform which will come up with literature related to any of the medical subjects you choose.  This is perhaps not a good idea to seek help of every medical resources discussed in this blog, yet using a few of the medical literature search engines will definitely serve the purpose of your constant source of authentic evidence.

How To Find A Medical Journal Search Engine

Search engines are programmed to be connected with the archives of published literature that are stored inside online subject-specific academic databases like the medical literature database

These huge databases of medical articles are indexed with millions of journals from all over the world. A single database cannot provide all the medical literature.

Here is a small list of databases that are used by some of the most popular medical search engines:       

  • EMBASE: owned by Elsevier with more than 29 million records
  • MEDLINE: Over 22 million biomedical published papers can be found  in this library
  • PsycINFO:  more than 3.5 million collections available

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR)

  • MedlinePlus: It is theNational Institutes of Health’s Web site Produced by the National Library of Medicine US
  • INDMED: National Database of Indian Medical Journals
  • LILACS: an  on-line   bibliographic database  in  medicine  and  health sciences , maintained by the  Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information  
  • Australian Medical Index: a database that indexes and abstracts articles from over 160 Australian health and medical journals
  • CBM: Chinese biomedical literature database

Below Is A List Of A Few Dedicated Search Engines For Your Medical Writing

PubMed is perhaps the first web-based free search engine that can strike in the minds of the medical authors. It is a free online collection of medical journal papers collected by the National Library of Medicine(NLM) of the United States National Institutes of Health.

This includes more than 25 million documents and scans a large number of databases including the so called MEDLINE and other NLM journals like MedlinePlus.

You can filter your search with ease for each and every topic in PubMed by  typing search terms to the MeSH  (Medical subject text heading).This is a filtering mechanism for finding specific journal papers. It also provides PMC citation and NCBI Bookshelf.

There are other search engines that seek out MEDLINE like  Ovid , ProQuest , and  Ebscohost . But for this, you have to manage the login access from your university.

Ovid is a search engine that is analogous to PubMed. But It has a clear edge over PubMed as Ovid can search for more number of databases including MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR). This depicts the fact that with Ovid, you can conduct a wider spectrum of search which will naturally provide more results and therefore more evidence for your health writing.

3. Web of Science

Web of Science  holds a huge database of Thomson Reuters’s 8,700 international scientific journals. A large number of international publications are included from Asia in this archive but need a subscription to access the papers.

Web of Science is a valuable database for searching scholarly journals on the upcoming trends especially if you are writing on guidelines or protocols. It encompasses more than 250 fields in science, arts, humanities, and social science.

Web of Science Core Collection is very consistent with its content selection and ensures high-quality journals. It provides indexes that cover the content thoroughly with a complete view including citation.

4. Science Direct

Have you heard about  ScienceDirec t? You probably have. It is a full-text scientific respiratory, proved to be of immense help to the millions of medical writers with detailed knowledge not limiting only to the abstract.

This search engine will allow you to find articles owned by academic publisher Elsevier in over 3,800 science, technology and medicine papers.

SpringerLink is another portal similar to Science Direct. This search engine has access to more than 5 million articles in journals operated by publisher Springer.

An American researcher wrote a review in 2006 indicating that if you use Web of Science frequently to search for papers, Scopus can be a great complement as neither of these two search engines look for articles that are all published

Scopus is a hefty database of more than 60 million peer-reviewed literature and is also owned by Elsevier. Scopus ties up with EMBASE and MEDLINE databases to search collections for journal articles. More than 4200 full-text journals that the search engine is connected with, will give you access to full-text articles but some of these may need login via subscription.

6. Cochrane Library

You can check the  Cochrane Library if you’re searching for systematic reviews or meta-analyses. This will not only give you the results from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), but also the control trials in MEDLINE and EMBASE, Cochrane protocols and editorials.

Cochrane library can be accessed only through subscription. However, many open-access editorials may also be retrieved, based on the timing of publishing of those articles.

7. Google Scholar

Google Scholar  is a free engine indexing medical journal articles from a diversified set of databases. If you are a regular user of Google search engine then you must be familiar with Google Scholar and you can navigate and filter the results without a problem to suit your quest.

If Google search engine initially fails you with the kind of articles you are looking for, then you should try Google Scholar as it won’t disappoint you.

Open-access search engines

If your institute does not permit you to access full-text journals then it should not be a worrying factor for you as there are several health related article search engines that will provide  open-access to free journal articles :

  • Directory of Open Acces Journals  – the database has nearly 10,000 open-access journals
  • Open Science Directory  – about 13,000 open-access scientific journals available
  • Free Medical Journals  – indexes about 4832 peer-reviewed open-access journals
  • OpenMD.com  – multi-source information search engine and state repository
  • Trip Database  – a medical search engine where one can filter searches based on the type of evidence.

So if you are going to write a medical research paper or article you will get all the required information from the above-mentioned search engines and databases.

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  1. List of academic databases and search engines

    This article contains a representative list of notable databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, institutional repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and other articles.

  2. The best academic search engines [Update 2024]

    The top list of academic search engines Content: 1. Google Scholar 2. BASE 3. CORE 4. Science.gov 5. Semantic Scholar 6. Baidu Scholar 7. RefSeek Frequently Asked Questions about academic search engines Related Articles

  3. 28 Best Academic Search Engines That make your research easier

    #1. Google Scholar #2. ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) #3. Wolfram Alpha #4. iSEEK Education #5. BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) #6. CORE #7. Science.gov #8. Semantic Scholar #9. RefSeek #10. ResearchGate #11. DataONE Search (formerly CiteULike) #12. DataElixir #13.

  4. 100 Search Engines For Academic Research

    167.7k Views What Are The Top 100 Search Engines For Academic Research? by TeachThught Staff General Need to get started with a more broad search? These academic search engines are great resources. ResearchGate Access over 135 million publication pages and stay up to date with what's happening in most professional fields. RefSeek

  5. Literature Search: Databases and Gray Literature

    Embase European database of biomedical and pharmacologic literature. PubMed PubMed comprises more than 21 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Scopus Largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources. Contains conference papers. Web of Science

  6. Literature searches: what databases are available?

    Embase Embase is considered the second most popular database after MEDLINE. More than 32 million records from over 8,200 journals from more than 95 countries, and 'grey literature' from over 2.4 million conference abstracts, are estimated to be in the Embase content.

  7. Semantic Scholar

    Semantic Reader is an augmented reader with the potential to revolutionize scientific reading by making it more accessible and richly contextual. Try it for select papers. G r een AI R o y Schwa tz, Jesse Dodge, N. A. Smith, O en Etzioni 2020 C eating efficiency in AI esea ch will dec ease its carbon footprint and inc ease its inclusivity as ...

  8. How to carry out a literature search for a systematic review: a

    Literature reviews are conducted for the purpose of (a) locating information on a topic or identifying gaps in the literature for areas of future study, (b) synthesising conclusions in an area of ambiguity and (c) helping clinicians and researchers inform decision-making and practice guidelines.

  9. Which academic search systems are suitable for systematic reviews or

    1 INTRODUCTION. Research output, as measured by the number of academic publications, continues to grow exponentially, 1, 2 placing scientists in danger of becoming decoupled from the discourse with which they are engaged. The growing volume of research makes it ever harder for practitioners and researchers to keep track of past and current findings in a specific discipline and across disciplines.

  10. The top list of academic research databases

    1. Scopus Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Beside searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator. Coverage: 90.6 million core records References: N/A Discipline: Multidisciplinary

  11. Explore Databases and Search Engines

    PubMed PubMed is a freely accessible bibliographic database of over 30 million references to articles in the biomedical sciences. The PubMed search interface was substantially redesigned in May of 2020. Highlights include: A new ranking algorithm, Best Match (see Figure 1)

  12. Open Source Literature Review Search Tools: A list of search tools help

    CORE CORE's mission is to aggregate all open access research outputs from repositories and journals worldwide and make them available to the public. In this way CORE facilitates free unrestricted access to research for all. Directory of Open Access Journals

  13. Best Academic Search Engines Every Researcher Should Know

    1. Reliable scholarly source: By using an academic search engine, researchers can ensure that the information they find is from reputable sources. These academic databases typically index content from scholarly journals, universities, research institutions, and other reliable and cited sources.

  14. Literature search for research planning and identification of research

    The literature search can be exhaustive and time-consuming, but there are some simple steps which can help you plan and manage the process. The most important are formulating the research questions and planning your search. ... Conducting a literature review involves web-based search engines, i.e., Google, Google Scholar, etc., ...

  15. JSTOR Home

    Harness the power of visual materials—explore more than 3 million images now on JSTOR. Enhance your scholarly research with underground newspapers, magazines, and journals. Explore collections in the arts, sciences, and literature from the world's leading museums, archives, and scholars. JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals ...

  16. Streamline your research using academic search engines

    ASE searches return publications that are sorted by topic and significance in the field, with the most frequently cited publications appearing higher in the list by default. Researchers can strategically use ASEs to compile an expansive bibliography and streamline the literature review process.

  17. Where to search when doing a literature review

    2. Focus your search with specific databases. Select two or three discipline/specialist databases to conduct your search for comprehensive results. Our subject guides will help you find databases relevant to major subject areas in each discipline and specific materials relevant to your research.

  18. In search of the right literature search engine(s)

    Available bio-literature search engines vary in their ability to scan different sections of articles, for the user-provided search terms and/or phrases. Since a thorough scientific analysis of all ...

  19. How to undertake a literature search: a step-by-step guide

    Undertaking a literature search can be a daunting prospect. Breaking the exercise down into smaller steps will make the process more manageable. This article suggests 10 steps that will help readers complete this task, from identifying key concepts to choosing databases for the search and saving the results and search strategy.

  20. Top 10+ Free Academic Search Engines and Databases for Scholarly Literature

    Google Scholar - http://scholar.google.com - provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, one can search across many disciplines and sources: articles,...

  21. World's Top 11 search-engines of Scholarly literature

    Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online academic journals and books, conference papers, theses ...

  22. Systematic Reviews: Medical Literature Databases to search

    At a minimum you need to search MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane CENTRAL trials register.This is the recommendation of three medical and public health research organizations: the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the U.K. Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), and the International Cochrane Collaboration (Source: Institute of Medicine (2011) Finding What Works in ...

  23. Relevant Medical Databases And Search Engines For Periodic Literature

    1. PubMed PubMed is perhaps the first web-based free search engine that can strike in the minds of the medical authors. It is a free online collection of medical journal papers collected by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) of the United States National Institutes of Health.