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Find and cite with Researcher in Word

The Researcher button on Word’s References tab lets you lookup information online and copy into a document with formatted but optional citation. It’s likely to dismay many teachers and lecturers.

Researcher is a cloud service, only available in Word 365 for Windows and Mac.

The Researcher pane is really a specialized Bing web search that lets you insert web content into a document, with or without citations.

Type in a search term or phrase to see some results.

General Overview

Click on a result to see more with two sections, a General Overview and then the Research, such as websites, books etc. 

Overview is a summary of the results, click on one to see more.   

Research shows the sources for the information.

Add with citation

Under the research material, a plus icon is located on the top right. Click on that icon to insert a heading or citation into the document.

Insert a heading with the same icon at the top of the pane.  The heading text is inserted with ‘Heading 1’ style.

Copy selected text

Of course, you can select any of the displayed text and copy it into your document.  Select the text and right-click to see options:  Add and Cite or Add.

Citation formatting

The formatting of citations is controlled from References | Citations & Bibliography | Style.

Educators might not like Researcher.  Students already copy web material into essays and this tool makes it even easier.  At least Researcher encourages citation of copied material.

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