**1. Introduction**

Great minds throughout human history have endeavored to understand the nature of knowledge, which forms the subject of the branch of philosophy known as epistemology, a word that translates to understanding [1]. In his dialogue Theaetetus, written around 369 BC, the philosopher Plato originated a definition of knowledge as justified true belief [2]. Despite criticism by epistemologists and other philosophers, such as Gettier in 1963 [3], Plato's contribution to the definition of knowledge has endured to this day. But how is new knowledge created, especially in other branches and areas of philosophy, such as logic, education, and science? Sir Isaac Newton wrote in 1678, "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of giants" [4]. Newton's statement implies that he discovered new knowledge by building upon prior knowledge discovered by others. More recently, researchers examining more than 28 million studies and over 5 million patents discovered that breakthroughs in almost all fields of knowledge are more likely to occur as large amounts of prior knowledge are mixed with current, extant knowledge, confirming Newton's observation [5].

The definition of breakthrough means to overcome a barrier, and breakthrough knowledge implies overcoming barriers to advance knowledge. One barrier to knowledge advancement throughout history has been a powerful status quo which resists novel ideas. For example, while conducting his scientific research at the University of Padua, Italy, Galileo Galilei complained in a letter to scientist Johannes Kepler in 1610 that "these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth" [6]. The philosopher Thomas Kuhn [7] later described how most advances in scientific knowledge involve incremental changes within the conventional paradigm. Kuhn further noted how scientific revolutions occur periodically as new knowledge breaks through conventional barriers and causes a disruptive shift in the reigning paradigm. Another historical barrier to the advancement of knowledge occurred throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, when recorded information was owned exclusively by elite sectors of society, usually the clergy and members of academia. As knowledge spread with the advent of the printing press, the power of the Catholic Church was reformed, and the printing press had an influential e ffect on the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution [8]. Since then, modern society has witnessed a relentless movement toward the democratization of the public's access to knowledge, especially in the age of digital technology.

Using today's web-based interactive tools such as Google's ubiquitous search engine and online databases, students, educators, practitioners, research scientists and inventors have an unprecedented opportunity to discover breakthrough knowledge by synthesizing current and prior knowledge available online. As academic libraries have digitized much of their content, no longer must students, practitioners, and researchers descend into the dark and dusty basements of institutional buildings seeking microfiches of archived literature. And yet, despite advances in accessing information online, a coming revolution in breakthrough knowledge appears to lie beyond the horizon. Students seeking new knowledge may feel hopelessly overwhelmed as they are bombarded with an overload of redundant online information [9], much of it of questionable veracity. In a quest to discover breakthroughs, research scientists may lack the advantage of leveraging online information search tools [5], inhibiting their capacity to step outside their disciplines and generate innovative, novel theories with the potential to produce a revolutionary paradigm shift in scientific concepts and practices [7]. The aim of this perspective article is to introduce concepts of researching and writing a web-based knowledge synthesis, which is intended to empower researchers across diverse disciplines with the skills to discover breakthrough knowledge in the age of Google.
