The Best Google Scholar Alternatives That Even Your Supervisor Doesn’t Know About

If you’ve ever felt limited by what Google Scholar shows you, you’re not alone. In this video, I walk through a range of alternative Google Scholar tools that can completely change how you search for and engage with research papers.

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While Google Scholar is familiar and widely used, it's built on a relatively simple keyword-based search system. That’s not a bad thing—it’s reliable and fast—but there are smarter, more advanced tools now available that many researchers don’t know about.

These alternatives of Google Scholar go beyond basic searches. Some of them use artificial intelligence to understand full research questions, find gaps in the literature, and summarise findings from multiple studies. Others let you explore citation networks, spot emerging trends in your field, or filter papers by methods, access type, or publication strength. I’ve personally tested many of these tools across different disciplines and found them especially helpful for staying up to date and saving time during the literature review process.

The goal of this video isn’t to tell you to ditch Google Scholar altogether—I still use it from time to time, and I even share some Google Scholar tips to help you get the most out of it. But if you’re serious about doing high-quality academic work, it’s worth knowing what else is out there. You might discover a more intuitive interface, deeper insights, or just a faster way to get to what actually matters in your research.
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▼ ▽ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
00:11 Google Scholar
00:58 Open Alex (Google Scholar Alternative)
03:19 Semantic Searching
04:44 AI tool 1
06:16 AI tool 2
07:31 AI tool 3
09:12 Best general AI
10:28 Outro

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