Prompt for Finding Research Articles
I am developing a research proposal related to English language teaching, English language learning, or applied linguistics. I need help locating publicly available, peer-reviewed research articles that relate to my research problem and that may offer possible solutions, strategies, interventions, or teaching practices for addressing the problem.
Here is my current research focus:
Researchable problem:
[Paste your researchable problem here.]Problem statement:
[Paste your problem statement here.]Target audience:
[Paste your target audience here.]Possible participants:
[Paste your possible participants here.]Search for 3–5 peer-reviewed research articles that are publicly available in full text. Prioritize research published within approximately the last 10 years, although an older study may be included if it is especially important or directly relevant.
When searching, consider all of the following:
the specific problem or difficulty described in my researchable problem;
the educational context, such as elementary school, high school, university, private language school, online learning, etc.;
the English proficiency level or age group, when relevant;
my possible participants;
my target audience, especially the people who could use the findings;
possible solutions, strategies, interventions, materials, classroom practices, or approaches that have been studied as ways to address the problem.
Do not limit the search to articles that use exactly the same wording as my problem. Identify related academic terminology and synonyms that researchers may use. For example, a problem described as “students do not want to speak English” might appear in research as willingness to communicate, L2 anxiety, classroom participation, speaking apprehension, or L1 use in EFL classrooms.
For each article, provide:
Complete APA 7 reference
DOI, if available
Publicly accessible full-text link
Research problem or purpose
Context and participants
Strategy, intervention, or possible solution investigated
Main findings
How the article connects to my researchable problem
How closely the participants match my possible participants
How the findings could be useful to my target audience
At the end, rank the articles from strongest to weakest match for my proposed research and briefly explain the ranking.
Important source requirements: Only recommend articles that you can verify actually exist. Do not invent titles, authors, journals, DOIs, findings, or URLs. The article must be peer reviewed and the full text must be publicly accessible. If you cannot verify that an article meets these requirements, do not include it.
Finally, provide 5–8 search terms or Boolean search strings that I could use myself in Google Scholar, ERIC, DOAJ, SciELO, Redalyc, or similar academic databases to find additional research.
Do not change my researchable problem or problem statement. Your purpose is to help me map the existing literature and identify research-based approaches that could potentially address the problem, not to decide what my study should conclude.
Suggested follow-up
After getting results, select the three strongest articles themselves for the Article 1, Article 2, and Article 3 columns in Academic Writing Matrix.xlsx rather than simply accepting the AI’s first three recommendations. They should open each article and verify the authors, publication, peer-review status, participants, methodology, and findings before adding it to the matrix. This is particularly consistent with the syllabus requirement that students independently fact-check and verify sources discovered with AI.
Focus on articles that investigate what has been tried to address the problem, rather than collecting three articles that merely confirm that the problem exists.