When Research Wizard Pro (also called Search Accelerator Pro) asked me to review their product, I thought I had to check it out. Anything that promised to save me time on research had to be worth a look. They were very efficient in providing an evaluation copy and it took no time at all to install. While it was installing I skimmed through the manual which comes with it, looking at all the things I could do. The manual does a good job of walking you through some of the main features and you need that walk through. Here’s why.

When I opened up the software I was blown away by the number of icons, toolbars and buttons that appeared on the screen. And let’s not forget the sidebar where you input your queries. I could not hope to talk you through these any better than the manual, so let me just say that though the interface is cluttered, it contains a lot of useful features.

The top left of the screen has a few menu links, a date screen (with a couple of other functions and a search box. When you search, additional options appear in the left sidebar. The right of the screen has about five rows of buttons and links and a built in browser window in the bottom right. These allow you to conduct searches on specific engines, in specific countries and for specific types of content (there’s also some fine tuning in the left hand search box.)

So, on to the field test. I had three research projects for which I usually use Google: a real estate article, an article on energy efficient homes and a lesson on journalism ethics. I decided to try Research Wizard Pro on these to see how it performed.

Case Study 1: The Real Estate Article

When I write these articles, I need a map, an MLS search and a community profile. That’s it. So although using Research Wizard Pro helped me find those things, it wasn’t an improvement on plain old Google. I didn’t need any of the bells and whistles for that project, so they were a distraction.

Case Study 2: Energy Efficient Homes

This was when it started to get interesting. While the main window gave me the standard Google search result (and you can change the default search engine if you want to), the side window gave me the option to narrow my search. I could look only for PDFs or for tutorials or for buying guides or for manuals – or for about 15 other things. I clicked on buying guides and got some great guides to energy efficiency in homes.

Effectively the software adds the resource type to your search term to narrow the search. Sure, I could have searched for that myself, but I might not have. The software has given me some additional ideas for focusing my search terms – and I thought I was already a pretty savvy searcher.

Case Study 3: Journalism Ethics

When I did the third search, I was seriously impressed. I had started to research this topic a few weeks earlier so I was able to make an on the fly comparison of Research Wizard Pro. I found stuff that I didn’t know was out there. I was able to search for tutorials, which helped as that was what I was creating. I will be using the tool to research the rest of the lessons in the course I’m creating. It shaved hours off the time I spend looking for quality resources.

More About Menus

Having tried it a few times, I was ready to look at the huge bank of toolbar icons. This time, they didn’t seem quite as daunting. The related searches bar at the top led me to a new tool, KWMap, which connects keywords related to your search. The next row led to some drop down menus for searching other search engines, RSS feed, video and more. The row below included other search tools and the final row had an address bar and buttons for adding bookmarks.

That leads to one minor gripe. I would have liked to mark resources as favorites within the program, rather than having to add them to my browser. However, I’m told that this functionality is coming in the next release. I have no hesitation in recommending Research Wizard Pro. Once you get accustomed to the interface, it puts a range of search options at your fingertips.

Everyone’s heard of Copyscape, the super duper plagiarism detection tool. Sometimes it’s the bane of our lives (like when clients who pay 1 cent a word want you to check every article on Copyscape even though you KNOW that you never plagiarise). At other times, it’s a useful tool, such as when you’ve subbed out some work and want to make sure that nothing that has your name attached to it will turn out to be plagiarised.

Most of the time, I find it useful. I signed up for a premium account so I could check blocks of text rather than just URLs. (Five cents a time is a small charge to protect my good name.) The fact is, sometimes you have to use it, but what do you do if it isn’t working? This recently happened to me. I needed to check some work quickly and Copyscape was throwing up error messages. Thanks to the wonders of Google, I quickly found a few alternatives, which I’m putting here in case you can use them.

Article Checker

Article Checker was the most useful of the alternatives I found. You can paste in a block of text and check it against the sites indexed on Google and Yahoo. It’s lightning quick and appears to be accurate. I don’t know how long a text has to be before it flags. I was checking 400 word articles and it seemed ok. I’ve used this tool a couple of times and it’s never found any plagiarism but that doesn’t mean it won’t. Many other writers I know use this tool because it is free. A good feature is that you can upload files for checking, which could be good if you are doing rewrites.

Plagiarism Checker

The Plagiarism Checker was originally designed as a student project at the University of Maryland. Like the other tools, it works by pasting some text into a box and hitting enter. Then you get a list of results for phrases. Interestingly, this check said the article I checked with Article Checker was almost certainly plagiarised. It brought up a list of suspicious phrases and then you could click on a link for more information. That took me to a Google search page which found … drumroll, please … no plagiarism. So I wouldn’t rely on that tool.

DupeCop

DupeCop allows you to compare two pieces of text through its free online duplicate content checker, or to compare up to four versions of spun articles through its spun article checker. I haven’t tested these yet, but this looks like a good service. There are desktop versions of both checkers too.

Other Tools

If you just want to compare web pages, then try DuplicateContent, which has an online URL comparison engine. There are also a few other tools, which I haven’t tested, but am listing in case you want to. DocCop has both free and paid services, but you will need to register to use either service. DupeFree Pro is a piece of free software (I’m still waiting for my registration details to arrive). Finally I-thenticate is a web based product used in business and education. It’s not free. In fact, you have to register just to find out the price, which is why I didn’t.

How would you like to get hold of a free online database? Well, it’s easy to do with this new offer. You can try the new online database tool, QuickBase from Intuit. It’s free for one month and you don’t even need a credit card.

Intuit makes QuickBooks and is now getting into web apps – that’s why we now have QuickBase. Not only is it a database, but it is also a customer relationship management and project management tool.

I think this will be especially useful for those who want these features without paying for a huge IT department, so small business owners might be especially interested. Once the trial is over, MavenMapper says that $249 a month will buy a ten person subscription, which is cheaper than some of the competition.

All support is handled by Intuit. When you sign up, a sales rep gets in touch and offers tutorial videos and other help so you can get to grips with the application and give it a real trial. That doesn’t cost you a dime, so QuickBase has to be worth a look.