Evaluating and Selecting Sources

Evaluating and Selecting Sources#

When you are doing an extensive literature search and using the different techniques suggested, chances are that you will end up with a large list of sources to go through. You will have to decide which ones you will select to study in more detail.

Standard Practice

Title-Abstract Reading
Quickly scan if an article is relevant for your research by looking at its title and abstract

AI Assist 1

Sorting Results of Initial Search
Use general tools to sort the order of your results before you go through the titles and abstracts

AI Assist 2

Dynamically Sort Results while Selecting
Train an AI-model to dynamically change the order of your results as you select based on titles and abstracts

Recap Standard Practice: Title-Abstract Reading#

A common way to select academic literature is by doing title-abstract reading. Watch this video to learn more about the practice. This strategy works well because you can quickly scan whether an article is relevant for your research.


"Selecting Resources" by TU Delft Library Education Support is licensed CC-BY

AI Assist 2: Dynamically Sort Results while Selecting#

There are AI-tools that actively learn what articles are relevant to your research based on your own choices during the review process. This can be especially helpful if you are working with a large amount of sources, both in a literature review and in a systematic literature review.

Watch an explainer of one of the most commonly used tools for this process, ASreview, to learn more about how this process works:


"ASReview LAB explained" by ASReview TV is licensed CC-BY

Guided Activity: Try out ASReview

Install and try out ASReview: Installation of ASReview requires some basic Python knowledge. You can find more information on how to install ASreview and what files you can upload in the ASReview Lab Guide

Summary and Prompts#

Task

Standard Practice

AI Assist

Tools

Example Prompts

Sort results from an initial search

Organise based on relevance score database

Make an initial relevance ranking of found papers to improve selection

General tools, e.g. Copilot, Claude, Gemini

I am a [x year] student in [study]. I am writing a literature review on [topic] with the following research question: [research question]. Attached is a file with all the sources that I found. Read the attached file, then make an organised list in their order of relevance to this question. Finally, make a table of this list including the name, authors, relevancy score and url leading directly to the location of the article. [attach a list from reference manager or specific database into tool]

Select articles to study

Title-abstract reading

Train AI to dynamically aid the review process

ASReview, Covidence

n/a

References#

Contents