Is there a free RRL finder?

Several free tools find real sources: Google Scholar, DOAJ, ERIC, PubMed and Philippine E-Journals all work without payment. Be careful with sites that promise to generate an RRL from a title. Generated text can contain references that do not exist, and submitting a chapter you did not write is a matter for your school's academic integrity policy. Wonders is not a free generator either. It is a paid research workspace with a 14-day trial, and it searches real published sources that you then read and write about yourself.

Where can I find local studies for my RRL?

Start with Philippine E-Journals (ejournals.ph), which hosts journals from Philippine universities and societies. For health topics use HERDIN (herdin.ph). Then check your own university library's thesis and dissertation collection, since many local theses are not indexed anywhere online. In large indexes such as Google Scholar or Wonders, add Philippines or Filipino, or a region or city name, to your query.

Can I use unpublished theses as related studies?

Yes, unless your manual says otherwise. The PUP thesis manual explicitly counts unpublished theses and dissertations among the works that may be reviewed. Cite them in APA 7 as unpublished theses with the institution name.

Are Scribd, Course Hero and Studocu acceptable sources?

Treat them as leads, not sources. They host user uploads whose origin you usually cannot verify. If you find a useful thesis there, note the author, title and school, then look for the original in the university repository or library and cite that.

How do I know a source is credible?

Check that it has named authors, a publisher or journal you can verify, a date, and a reference list of its own. For journals, check whether the journal is indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, the ASEAN Citation Index or DOAJ. Be wary of journals that promise publication within days for a fee.

Does Wonders write the RRL for me?

No. Wonders helps you search, read, organize and cite. It does not produce a finished chapter for you to submit, and it is designed so that every note and citation traces back to a real paper. The synthesis and the wording are your work.

Where to Find Sources for Your RRL (Foreign and Local)

Before you can write an RRL you need enough credible sources, local ones included, inside your school's allowed date range. This guide lists where to look, then shows the same search done in Wonders.

Before you search

Have three things ready:

Your variables, population and setting, taken from your title. See step 2 of how to write an RRL.
Your school's rules: minimum number of sources, allowed years, and whether you need foreign and local subsections.
A place to log what you find. A spreadsheet works. So does a Wonders project.

Where to find foreign literature and studies

Source	Best for	Cost
Google Scholar	Broad first pass in any field	Free to search. Full text varies
Wonders	One search across 320M+ scholarly works from OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar, plus Google Patents, with a Boolean builder and filters	Paid, with a 14-day trial. Lower-priced Student plan
ERIC	Education research	Free
PubMed and PubMed Central	Health, nursing, psychology	Free
DOAJ	Open-access journals in all fields	Free
Your library's subscriptions (ProQuest, EBSCO, ScienceDirect, JSTOR)	Full text behind paywalls	Free through your school, if subscribed

Ask your librarian which databases your school pays for.

Where to find local literature and studies

Coverage of Philippine journals and theses in international indexes is incomplete, so local sources need their own search.

Philippine E-Journals (ejournals.ph). Describes itself as an online collection of academic publications of different higher education institutions and professional organizations.
HERDIN (herdin.ph). The Health Research and Development Information Network, a searchable database of Philippine health research.
Your university's thesis repository and library. Many schools keep undergraduate and graduate theses in print or in an institutional repository. These are often the closest studies to your own topic and setting.
Other universities' open repositories. Several Philippine universities publish theses and faculty research openly. Search the repository of any school known for your field.
Government sources. PSA for statistics, DepEd and CHED for orders and memoranda, DOH for health data, NEDA and PIDS for policy studies. PIDS publishes discussion papers and research papers.
Large indexes with a Philippine filter in the query. Add Philippines OR Filipino, or a province or city, to a search in Google Scholar or Wonders.

If you find little local work, record that. "Few local studies exist on this topic" is a finding you can state in your synthesis, as long as you can show where you searched.

How to do it in Wonders

Wonders is a research workspace for the literature review process: search, organize, write and cite. It is a paid tool. New accounts start with a 14-day trial, and there is no free plan. Here is the RRL search step by step, using the sample topic of bedtime smartphone use and sleep quality among senior high school students.

1. Create a project for your study

Name it after your working title. What you save, highlight and write for this study stays inside the project.

2. Build your query

Start from your variables: "bedtime smartphone use", "sleep quality", adolescents. The Boolean builder lets you combine terms and synonyms, such as "screen time" or "sleep duration", with AND, OR and NOT. Wonders searches OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar. It does not have an index of its own.

3. Filter to your manual's rules

Use the year slider to match your school's recency rule, for example the last ten years for PUP.

4. Run a second search for local studies

Add another search panel to the same project and add Philippines OR Filipino to the query. Coverage of Philippine journals in any international index is incomplete, so pair this with Philippine E-Journals and your library's thesis collection.

5. Screen before you read

Read the abstract and the summary to decide whether a paper is relevant. Quotes shown in a summary are checked against the paper's text. Save the papers that match your variables. Skip the ones that only share a keyword. For a paywalled paper, check whether your library provides access, or look for an open-access version.

6. Read and highlight

Highlight the method, sample and key findings, using colors for your themes. Each highlight stays linked to the paper it came from, and where full text is available a page-number citation opens the PDF at the passage. That is what you need later when your adviser asks where a claim came from.

7. Group sources in the Organize view

Drag saved papers and highlights into groups. Use your manual's headings (Foreign Literature, Local Literature, Foreign Studies, Local Studies) or your themes. The groups become the sections of Chapter 2.

8. Write and export citations

Draft in the Wonders editor or in Word. Citations are generated from the papers you saved. Wonders formats bibliographies in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, exports documents as DOCX, PDF, LaTeX, HTML or Markdown, and exports references as BibTeX, RIS or CSV. Check each generated reference against our APA 7th edition guide, particularly for local theses, where metadata is often incomplete.

Try the search step on your own topic. New Wonders accounts start with a 14-day trial, and there is a lower-priced Student plan. Start a trial or see student pricing.

What Wonders does not do

It does not generate an RRL for you to submit. We explain why on our Don't cheat page.
It does not contain every unpublished Philippine thesis. No index does. Use your library for those.
It does not decide whether a source is local or foreign under your school's rule. You do, with your adviser.

Keep a search record

Panels sometimes ask how you found your sources. Keep a short log:

Date	Where searched	Query	Filters	Results	Saved
[date]	[database or index]	("smartphone use" OR "screen time") AND "sleep quality" AND adolescents	[year range]	[number]	[number]
[date]	[same index]	same, AND (Philippines OR Filipino)	[year range]	[number]	[number]
[date]	ejournals.ph	smartphone sleep students	[filters]	[number]	[number]
[date]	University library thesis catalog	sleep, gadget use	[year range]	[number]	[number]

Fill in the bracketed cells with what you actually did and found. A log like this also lets you state accurately, in your synthesis or scope, where you looked and what you did not find.

Evaluating what you find

Prefer peer-reviewed journal articles, university theses and government reports.
Check the journal. Indexing in Scopus, Web of Science, the ASEAN Citation Index or DOAJ is a good sign.
Do not cite content farms, essay sites or uploads on Scribd, Course Hero or Studocu. Trace the original instead.
Never cite a paper you could not open. See how to cite sources you can't fully access.
Verify anything a chatbot suggests. See how to cite sources you found through AI tools.

Related guides

References

Polytechnic University of the Philippines. (2017). University thesis and dissertation manual. ISBN 978-971-95208-8-7. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/pupuniversitythesisanddissertationmanualwithisbnasof080717pdf/251450946
Philippine E-Journals. https://ejournals.ph/
HERDIN, Health Research and Development Information Network. https://www.herdin.ph/
Philippine Institute for Development Studies, publications. https://www.pids.gov.ph/publications