Start Strong: Finding and Structuring the Right Articles
Find relevant literature and structure your sources in one place
This first set of prompts is designed to help you collect and structure the core literature for your research topic. Starting with defining your topic and finding key articles, you’ll then generate precise search strategies to expand your sources, and finally analyze each article in detail. By following these steps, you’ll gradually build a document with structured information that captures essential information: references, purposes, methods, findings, and future research directions. This document will become your personal literature database, making it easier to spot research gaps and prepare high-quality sections for your academic paper.
Step 1: Find articles relevant to your topics
As highlighted on the Google Scholar homepage, “Stand on the shoulders of giants.” Before beginning any research project, it is essential to understand the status quo—that is, what is already known about the topic under investigation. This understanding helps avoid “reinventing the wheel,” clarifies the significance and contribution of your research, and increases the likelihood of publication.
In this step, you are provdied prompts that will ask questions and based on your answers will hep you develop effective search queries for use in Scopus or Google Scholar. These tailored prompts will support you in finding the most relevant and high-quality articles for your research.
Scopus is a curated, subscription-based database covering peer-reviewed journals, conference papers, and book chapters with quality control and citation tracking.
Google Scholar, by contrast, is freely accessible and broader in scope, indexing diverse sources, including theses, reports, and non-peer-reviewed materials with less stringent quality filtering.
Scopus Search
This prompt turns the assistant into a step-by-step Scopus strategy builder. It starts by confirming the user’s topic, then applies the PCC framework—Population, Concept, Context—to structure thinking. At each stage, it proposes tailored examples (broad, medium, narrow) and gathers choices before assembling three copy-ready search blocks. The blocks are optimized for Scopus syntax: Boolean precision (AND/OR/NOT), parentheses, phrase quotes, truncation and wildcards, plus synonyms, variants, acronyms, and abbreviations within TITLE-ABS-KEY(). Finally, it recommends filters such as year range, document type, subject area, and language, and offers refinement tips.
Copy the prompt and paste it into the AI platfomt that you use (ChatGPT, Gemini or other)
Video Tutorial
Google Scholar Search
This prompt turns an AI into a research assistant for building precise Google Scholar queries. It walks the user through a workflow using the PCC framework—Population, Concept, and Context—to transform an initial topic into three copy-ready searches (broad, medium, narrow). At each step, the assistant confirms understanding, proposes examples tailored to the topic, and gathers choices, then assembles queries using quotation marks, OR groupings, intitle:, date limits, and exclusions. The staged design balances recall and precision, encourages synonym expansion, and finishes with filters and refinement tips.
Copy the prompt and paste it into the AI platfomt that you use (ChatGPT, Gemini or other)