Literature search guides

How to find research literature properly: the method, the tools, the parts everyone skips, and where each approach stops working.

These are working guides rather than overviews. Each one answers a specific question directly, then explains the method behind the answer and says where it fails — because a technique described without its failure mode is not usable advice.

They are written for the search itself: deciding what to look for, finding it across vocabularies and document types, deciding what is relevant, and knowing when to stop. They are not about writing up, and they do not assume you have institutional access.

All guides

What AI can and cannot do in a literature review: Can AI write a literature review?
Boolean vs semantic search for literature: What is the difference between Boolean and semantic literature search?
Citation chasing and snowballing: What is snowballing in a literature review?
Finding and using preprints: Where can I find preprints?
Finding research datasets: How do you find research datasets?
Finding theses and dissertations: How do you find theses and dissertations?
Google Scholar alternatives: What are the best alternatives to Google Scholar?
Searching grey literature: What is grey literature and how do you search it?
How to find research papers on a topic: How do I find research papers on a topic?
Getting papers you cannot access: How can I legally access a paywalled research paper?
Patent search for researchers: How do you search patents for research purposes?
The PRISMA flow diagram, explained: What is a PRISMA flow diagram?
Screening papers for relevance: How do you screen papers for relevance quickly?
When is a literature search finished?: How do you know when a literature search is complete?
Building a systematic review search strategy: How do you build a systematic review search strategy?

Where to start

If you are beginning a search from nothing, read how to find research papers on a topic first — the four-path method it describes is the frame the other guides fill in. If you already have a search running and it is not producing anything, citation chasing is usually the fastest thing to change. If you are writing something that has to defend its completeness, start with building a systematic review search strategy.

Where litscout fits

litscout is a tool for the retrieval half of this: it turns a research question into a ranked, explainable set of papers, preprints, patents, theses and datasets, and it says why each result was returned. It does not assess methodological quality and does not check retraction status — see what AI can and cannot do in a literature review for where that line falls, and litscout vs Google Scholar for how it differs from keyword search.