Read: Thomas (2025): Chapters 5 ? 8 Read: Professionalism in artificial intelligence: The link between technology and ethics. Links to an exte

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Discussion Thread: AI Research Tools and Proper Use

AI Research Tools

List 8 (eight) AI tools for research and an advantage and disadvantage of using each.

Liberty University Line Between Approved Use of AI Tools versus Academic Misconduct

Discuss ethical pitfalls and dilemmas of overreliance/use on AI writing assistance, in particular, identify the amount/kinds of AI use that represent Academic Integrity versus Academic Misconduct as outlined by Liberty University. Remember brevity, be concise – see rubric.

PowerPoint 5 Searching and screening

Chapter 5 from

How to do your literature review

This is PowerPoint 5 for Chapter 5 …

We will look at

Using academic search engines

Using AI

Snowballing

Using databases

Using keywords

Screening and selection

All of this is discussed in much more detail in Chapter 5 of How to Do Your Literature Review

Using academic search engines and AI

Google Scholar is the most commonly used academic search engine, though there are others.

It searches for literature based on your query.

The query may be a name, a topic, or an article’s title.

It will categorise and store references for you, as well as searching.

It is not as comprehensive as subject-specific databases.

Authors’ names can be used for snowballing

Full versions of an article often are available here.

‘Cited by’ is a good indication of how much impact the article has had.

If you click on this, it will take you to all of the works that have cited it.

Snowballing

If a search from a search engine comes up with a really interesting ‘find’ that is spot-on your area of interest, you can snowball from it.

This involves either …

finding material that the authors themselves drew on (backward snowballing), or …

going forward in time to material where other authors have cited your key reference (forward snowballing).

To forward snowball

Click on ‘Cited by’ under the article in Google Scholar, which will give a list of all the other works that have cited this article.

Look through these articles that have cited your key article.

Do any look especially interesting?

Have any been highly cited?

To backward snowball

Find the article online (you can do this from your search engine search)

Now, examine the article’s reference list to see if there are articles or books that look to be of particular interest to you.

Follow these up with a separate search.

Other features of snowballing

Borrow the keywords of your key article for further searches.

Look to see which journals are carrying papers on the topic you’re interested in.

Organising your work with Scholar

Each Scholar ‘find’ has a little star under it. If the reference is useful to you in some way click on the star and it will save the reference to your personal Library.

Google Scholar creates a ‘Library’ for you as soon as you click on the little star

Click on ‘My Library’ at the top right or top left of the screen and you’ll see the reference for which you clicked the star is now installed there.

Repeat for each reference you want to save, and you’ll accumulate a library of references.

Organising the Library

Open your Library (click My Library, top right or left of screen)

Each reference you have put in there has a little icon underneath that looks like a tie-on suitcase label

Click on the icon, and it will give you the option to ‘Create new’. You can now label the reference in any way you wish. You may want to label this with, for example:

a label for topics (e.g., media, films, newspapers, social media)

a label for closeness (e.g., general, close, specific)

Using AI

Elicit.com will find relevant papers and summarise them

Semantic Scholar is similar to Google Scholar, but allows you to target finds according to fields of study and whether the found articles have a pdf.

Consensus.app is similar to Elicit.com.

ChatGPT will help you to brainstorm research questions and recommend databases.

Bing AI is similar to ChatGPT.

Connected Papers

… will draw a diagram of its finds and show how they relate to each other

There are positives and negatives to AI

Positives to AI

AI machines are good at finding relevant papers and those that are maybe tucked away in a remote corner of the literature somewhere.

They are great for snowballing backwards and forwards.

They review a range of databases (eg PubMed, ERIC, PsycInfo) saving you the trouble of going to each individually.

Negatives to AI

They may miss some obvious finds and connections.

They may latch on to a word in a search query or title that isn’t centrally relevant and go over the top on offering ‘finds’ based on that word.

They are not good at telling a story. Even when they claim to be offering some kind of digest, this is more like a list – albeit a list that is made to look like prose – than a narrative. They are bad at connecting ideas.

Relying on them too closely can mean that the form, structure and priorities of the existing literature can be privileged over a thoughtful review of what is important for the issue that you are exploring.

Because they seem to be doing all the work for you, they may discourage you from reading around and getting an impression, a ‘feel’, of what the literature is saying.

Databases

A library database contains huge amounts of information, organised so you can find it easily.

The information has been organised by fields – keywords, authors, titles, etc. – and these fields of information can be searched.

You’ll find databases under ‘Databases’ in your library website.

Commonly used ones are

ProQuest

Web of Science

Scopus

PubMed

British Nursing Index

Business Source Premier

ERIC

Sociological abstracts

CINAHL

PsycINFO

OpenGrey

Library databases will find much more targeted information on your topic of interest than a search engine is likely to find.

A page from PubMed where the search query was ‘effects of aspirin on heart disease’

How to use keywords in a database search

Create a list of centrally important words for your question.

Be aware of synonyms or related terms that may be used in the literature.

If necessary, adopt the ‘controlled vocabulary’ used in most databases. The database will provide these or subject headings (e.g., MeSH terms in PubMed).

If necessary, use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and wildcards to combine keywords and refine your search.

Enclose a phrase in quotation marks to search for an exact phrase. For example, use “child carers” to search for this exact phrase.

Record your search strategy, including the keywords used, so that you can replicate or modify the search in future if needed.

Screening and selection – thinning down your trawl of finds

You may apply different eli­gibility criteria, sometimes called ‘inclusion and exclusion criteria’ for your finds.

For example, you may wish to include only those articles published within a particular timeframe.

Or to restrict your review to pieces reporting on work using a particular methodology.

Or to look for the most highly cited articles.

Screening and selection is an iterative process

You go backwards and forwards, refining and revising as you go.

Search

Refine with eligibility criteria

Summary

There are many invaluable software and online resources that help you to find, store and organise material.

Google Scholar helps to find material and to organise it in your own library.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as Elicit.com, Connected Papers and ChatGPT can help in the identification and summary of literature sources but will not satisfactorily integrate the various ‘stories’ in the literature.

Library databases and other library resources are invaluable and should not be downplayed with the advent of AI, since they can provide a far more targeted and deep-reaching search.

Always feel free to ask a librarian – online or in person. They want you to ask questions. They know everything, and more, about databases.

Keywords and search limiters form an essential part of screening the large number of finds you will most likely make from database searches. It’s worth learning how to use them effectively.

Searching is not a one-off process. It’s iterative: what you learn from your first trawl through the literature informs the next bout of searching, and the next.

Activity

Open your library webpage and login.

Find the heading that says ‘Database search’ (or something similar) and click on it.

Type in the name of your subject or area of interest for a database.

Find a database that appeals to you, on any topic that grabs your interest.

Enter a search term; you will probably be taken to a more specialised or relevant database.

Now enter various keywords and search terms of your own choosing to see what happens and how much you discover.

Note interesting findings or anomalies and discuss with others.

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PowerPoint 6 Structuring a narrative review

Chapter 6 from

How to do your literature review

This is PowerPoint 6 for Chapter 6 …

We will look at

Possible structures for a narrative review

A funnelled structure

A thematic structure

A chronological structure

A comparison-based structure

A mixed structure

All of this is discussed in much more detail in Chapter 6 of How to Do Your Literature Review

Possible structures for a narrative review

  Funnelled The review begins by surveying the general area, narrowing down to the specific topic of interest.  
  Thematic The review is based around themes which are either decided before the review starts or are decided as the review itself gets underway.
  Chronological There is an important time-based dimension to the review, usually to show how ideas and/or practice have changed over a period of time.
  Comparison-based The comparison may be around methodological differences, or the competing views of particular authors or teams of researchers about substantive issues.  
  Mixed Combining various elements of each of the other approaches.

Funnelled

Funnelling the literature review involves moving from the broad to the narrow, the general to the specific. You start with wider, more contextual aspects of your topic and gradually sharpen your focus until you reach the particular aspect of the topic in which you are interested.

The funnel structure

Work that is generally relevant: the big picture

 

Nearer to your research

 

Closely related work

 

Thematic

You may organise your review around the themes that you discover as you progress through your search. This is especially useful where there is no clear linear structure to the relationship between sub-areas of work in your topic of interest, or where a broad topic branches off straightforwardly into several themes.

The thematic structure

Main topic

Theme 2

Theme 3

Theme 1

Chronological

This structure is useful where the topic clearly has a time basis to it.

You may, for example, be interested in how ideas and practice have moved over time.

Here, databases and discovery tools provide an easy route to examining change, by offering the option to examine material in chronological order.

The chronological structure

Topic: Changing perspectives on x

Time 1

Time 5

Time 4

Time 3

Time 2

1950

2020

Comparison-based

If there is a noticeable issue about different perspectives or methods generating conspicuously different kinds of findings and understandings, it may be a good idea to structure a review around these different perspectives. Different worldviews, ideologies or methodological positions may lead to very different ideas about the nature of research, and thereafter to practice stemming from that research.

The comparison-based structure

Perspective A

Perspective B

Methodological papers arguing for Perspective A

Example sources

Example sources

Methodological papers arguing for Perspective B

Example sources

Mixed

It may be that a combination of the previous scaffolds would be appropriate. The review may take shape around how research has happened over time, with themes, subjects, issues and controversies being discussed. The review may, for example, start with a historical context, charting the progress of knowledge and understanding in the area, moving on to a thematic perspective and proceeding to a discussion of the influence of particular authors on the field.

If the topic is one that is well known to you – if, say, you have experience as a practising professional – and you have a good grasp of the themes, dialogue and argument in the field and around the area you wish to review, this may well be the best choice for you.

The mixed structure

Topic

Historical perspective

Policy

Parallels in other areas

Substantive issues

Summary

To have integrity, meaning and cohesion, a literature review needs structure.

That structure will guide the ways that you view, categorise, place and discuss the material that you include in your work.

Various basic structures can provide this cohesion and integrity.

A funnelled structure moves from discussion of general matters to matters specifically focused on a defined question.

A thematic structure draws themes from the literature that summarise the main issues.

A chronological structure focuses on and analyses differences and changes over time.

A comparison-based structure may be best if there is a conspicuous difference in opinion about substance or methodology around research on the topic.

A mixed structure, perhaps the most common arrangement, combines elements of all the others.

There is no ‘best’ structure. It depends on the topic, the question, and the nature of the field.

Activity

Choose one or more of the very broad topics outlined the left-hand column of the table below.

Suggest a targeted question for the topic.

Suggest a structure for a literature review based on the alternatives given in this PowerPoint (Funnelled, Thematic, etc).

Say why you think it would be feasible and appropriate to structure your literature review in this way.

Topic Question Structure
Definitions of child poverty    
Changing views on the treatment of burns    
The marketisation of education    
Terrorism as a political tool    
Globalization and its impact on the supply of skilled workers    

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PowerPoint 7 Systematic literature reviews

Chapter 7 from

How to do your literature review

This is PowerPoint 7 for Chapter 7 …

We will look at

What is a systematic literature review?

Criticisms of systematic literature review

How a systematic review works

Differences between systematic and narrative reviews

All of this is discussed in much more detail in Chapter 7 of How to Do Your Literature Review

Before we look at systematic literature review, note the following …

Systematic literature review is a specialised process which is time-consuming and is resource-intensive. It can’t easily be done by students on their own.

However:

It is useful to know about the process because you will come across systematic reviews (or reviews which claim to be systematic) in your own searches, and it is useful to understand their methods and claims.

There are elements of the process of systematic literature review that can usefully be borrowed for a student review (such as the specification of search parameters).

What is a systematic literature review?

The systematic literature review has features that make it rather different from a traditional or narrative review. In the main, these concern:

The specification at the outset of the review of a ‘protocol’, which lays out its plans and must be followed exactly.

A clear specification of the search strategy, specifying the keywords and databases to be used.

Screening of the studies discovered in (b) by using eli­gibility criteria (which must have been specified in the protocol) about relevance and quality.

The origins of systematic review

Systematic literature review’s claim is that it provides a systematic and reliable way to assess the quality and scale of evidence on a topic.

It owes its origins mainly to what is called ‘evidence-based medicine’.

Archie Cochrane, the originator of ‘evidence-based medicine’ argued that evidence from a specific kind of experiment should be the benchmark for quality for inclusion in a review.

That specific kind of experiment is the randomised controlled trial (RCT), wherein experimental conditions are carefully controlled and sources of bias eliminated.

Evidence from RCTs, Cochrane argued, should be systematically collated and summarised.

Criticisms

Selection bias. In their choice of question and selection of search terms, researchers may be able to skew their search toward the kind of finding they expect or hope to make, therein invalidating claims about the elimination of ‘subjectivity’.

Reviews may be vulnerable to publication bias, where studies with positive results are more likely to be published.

Lack of heterogeneity. Studies with a particular methodology may be favoured, thereby distorting analysis of a topic.

Implied or explicit downgrading or marginalisation of alternative approaches to review.

Time-consuming and resource intensive.

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