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.
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)