## The role of AI

When you use an AI tool that is specifically intended for literature research, such as Scispace or Elicit, you cannot use Boolean search queries with AND and OR. These tools use “semantic search”: you enter a search query in natural language, after which the tool supplements the main words with word variants, based on the meaning of those words and their context. It is convenient that you no longer have to come up with these yourself. But, on the other hand, you also lose grip because you do not know which word variants the tool has come up with.

A few tools are good at citation searches. On the basis of a single article, you can find, within a few seconds, cited and citing literature, important authors, journals, etc. As you find more important articles in this way, you can further refine your catch.

Try it out
Find an interesting article, put its title and author into this tool and see what happens.