Top 11 Trusted (And Free) Search Engines For Scientific and Academic Research

Whether Conducting Academic Research or Purely Scientific Research, These Sites can be an Invaluable Aid.

Researching is the most crucial step of writing a scientific paper. It is always a well-researched scientific paper that inspires the assessor. At the same time, it must have genuine and authentic information for credibility. With the development in Internet industry, i.e., web resources, researching for scientific materials has now become a matter of a few clicks. Now students can get information on any topic pertaining to science through academic search engines. They provide a centralized platform and allow the students to acquire literature on any topic within seconds.

While there are many academic search engines available, there are some that have the most trusted resources. They provide information on a range of topics from Engineering and technology to Biology and Natural Science. They provide a one-stop solution to all research-related needs for a scientific paper. Besides, they provide a personal and customized way to search research materials on any given topic. This article will focus on some popular academic search engines that have revolutionized the way information is researched by the students. They are rich in information and have the highest level of credibility.

1. Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/): Google Scholar is a free academic search engine that indexes academic information from various online web resources. The Google Scholar lists information across an array of academic resources, mostly are peer-reviewed. It works in the same manner as Scirus. Founded in 2004, it is one of the widely used academic resources for researchers and scholars.
2. CiteSeer^x (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu): CiteSeer^x is a digital library and an online academic journal that offer information within the field of computer science. It indexes academic resources through autonomous citation indexing system. This academic database is particularly helpful for students seeking information on computer and information sciences. It offers many other exclusive features to facilitate the students with the research process that include: ACI – Autonomous Citation Indexing, reference linking, citation statistics, automatic metadata extraction and related documents. Founded in 1998, it is the first online academic database and has since evolved into a more dynamic and user-friendly academic search engine.
3. GetCITED (http://www.getcited.org/): GetCITED is another powerful tool for searching scientific information. It is an online academic database that indexes academic journals and citations. It is a one-stop platform that offers everything related to academic publications such as chapters, conference papers, reports and presentations. You can even browse through the bibliographies to search related details. Furthermore, you can find information on any author and his published works. The two ‘most outstanding’ features of this academic search engine tool include: ‘a comprehensive database’ and ‘discussion forum’. It allows every member from academia to contribute in its database resources. It has over 3,000,000 written by more than 3,00,000 authors.
4. Microsoft Academic Research (http://academic.research.microsoft.com/): Microsoft academic research is yet another top search engine for academic resources. Developed by Microsoft Research, it has more than 48 millions publications written by over 20 millions authors. It indexes range of scientific journals from computer science and engineering to social science and biology. It has brought in many new ways to search academic resources, such as papers, authors, conferences and journals. This academic search engine allows you to search information based on authors or domains.
5. Bioline International (http://www.bioline.org.br/): Bioline is among the most trusted and authentic search engines that has peer-reviewed academic journals on public health, food and nutritional security, food and medicine and biodiversity. It provides free access to peer-reviewed journals from third world countries. It promotes exchange of ideas through academic resources. Founded in 1993, it has 70 journals across 15 countries that offer information on subjects like crop science, biodiversity, public health and international development.
6. Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/): Director of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is yet another free search engine for scientific and scholarly resources. The directory offers a huge range of topics within scientific areas of study. It is among the richest sources of scholarly database with over 8,000 journals available on different topics. All the journals are thoroughly peer-reviewed.
7. PLOS ONE (http://www.plosone.org/): Founded in 2006, PLOSE ONE provides a free access platform to everyone searching for science-related information. All the articles publish on PLOS ONE are published after going through a strict peer-reviewed process. This academic database has a meticulous procedure for publishing a journal. You can find plenty of articles and academic publications using this platform.
   
8. BioOne (http://www.bioone.org/): An excellent search engine for scientific information, BioOne contains academic resources for biological, environmental and ecological sciences. Established in 2000, it started as an NGO and later became an online academic journal directory. The journal gives free access to over 25000 institutions all over the world.
   
9. Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (http://iopscience.iop.org/1468-6996/): First published in 2000, the science and technology of advanced materials became online in 2008. This peer-reviewed academic journal offers free access to academic journals on major areas of science and technology. The academic directory is totally free of cost and provides easy and simple access to plethora of information covering scientific subject-matters.
10. New Journal of Physics (http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630): New Journal of Physics is an online scientific search engine that has academic databases with physics as core subject. Founded in 1998, it is co-founded by the Institute Of Physics and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The search engine offers academic journals on diversified topics with physics as central theme.
11. ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com/): “A leading full-text scientific database offering journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 journals and almost 20,000 books.”

The above mentioned academic database and directories are among the most trusted search engines for scientific research. They offer information on possibly all the major areas of science including computer and technology, biology, environmental science and social sciences, and other areas of academic research.

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