About the Tool
Research Rabbit is a “citation-based literature mapping tool.” It is designed to optimize your time searching for references as you start planning your paper or literature review. The concept is simple: you start by using one or more papers (called seed papers), and the app will find more papers relevant to the topic of interest (which is dictated by the seed papers you previously selected.)
The tool is designed to support your research without you switching between searching modes and databases, a process that is time-consuming and often escalates into further citation mining; a truly unpleasant rabbit hole (and that’s what inspired the name ResearchRabbit)!
The software scans for any publicly available source online and select papers based on their similarities. However, it seems to only work for scholarly papers, and therefore is unlikely to find other sources of information that are not journal articles, such as books.
- Creates citation maps as well as networks of recommended articles based on user provided collections of articles
- Create article and collaborator recommendations, set alerts, and share collections
- Free but must create user account
- Import collection from Zotero
- Build new collection using Pubmed ID, DOI, or keyword search
Example
With Research Rabbit, enter a paper title or DOI rather than keywords, subject terms, or a question. In this example, I enter a paper titled "The Effectiveness of Wearable Devices as Physical Activity Interventions for Preventing and Treating Obesity in Children and Adolescents."
If available, the paper is displayed. Click Add to Collection.
The paper is added to a collection. Name the collection if desired. From here, you can begin to explore other related papers, such as Similar Work, All References, All Citations, etc.
Research Rabbit creates a visual map based on your display selection.
If you select other papers, a new visual map is created.
Some papers will be linked and you may read them online. If you encounter a paywall, search for the article in OneSearch to access it if we own or subscribe to it. If the Saybrook Library cannot provide access, you may request it via Interlibrary Loan.