It's been interesting catching up on this thread. So far, the suggestions like Elicit and Consensus seem great for finding real papers, and Zotero is definitely the standard for organizing. As someone who is super cautious about AI making stuff up, I usually look for tools that prioritize verification over creativity. I've looked into a couple of other reliable options:

• Grammarly Premium AI Writing Assistant: Their citation generator and plagiarism checker are way more trustworthy than a standard chatbot. It actually cross-references real academic databases to make sure your work is original.
• Mendeley Desktop Reference Manager: This is a very stable alternative to Zotero. It keeps your research notes strictly tied to your actual PDFs, so there's no risk of the tool inventing points you didn't read. Honestly, sticking to these safe tools is probably better than risking your grades on a bot that might hallucinate.

Saw this earlier but just getting a chance to reply now. I definitely agree with the first post—avoiding hallucinations is the biggest hurdle. While Zotero is great for management, if you want help actually digging through data, check out Consensus AI Search Engine Premium. It basically acts like a search engine that only scans peer-reviewed papers, so it doesnt make things up like a standard chatbot might. For the organization side of things, I honestly swear by Notion Plus with AI Add-on. The way you can build a database for your research notes and then use the AI to find themes across different papers is a game changer for drafting. It keeps the workflow way smoother than switching between ten tabs. Plus, its pretty cheap if you use the student discount. Just remember to always verify the final citation format before you hit submit tho.

Been there, uni life is brutal. For finding actual papers, stop using basic bots. I swear by Elicit AI Research Assistant Plus because it summarizes real peer-reviewed studies without making stuff up. For the citations and organizing, Zotero 7 Desktop Reference Manager is still the gold standard imo. It has a plugin that handles APA perfectly. These two saved my life during my senior thesis, ngl.

I'm in the same boat tbh. It's tough because those premium tiers for data extraction get so pricey when you're processing hundreds of papers like we have to.