Ilya Shabanov Profile picture
Jan 15, 2023 β€’ 10 tweets β€’ 10 min read β€’ Read on X
How to start a literature review from a single keyword.

I tried about a dozen tools.

Conclusion: This effortless workflow with @OK_Maps and @paperpile

πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡

#AcademicChatter #ScienceTwitter #AcademicTwitter
@OK_Maps @paperpile 1. Start with a search term

Think of OKMaps as a better google for your very first step of lit research.

Simply type in a topic and see relevant papers sorted in groups.

Refine your results by date if you are looking for a specific period, or newest papers. Image
@OK_Maps @paperpile 2. See results

OKMaps will find a number of most relevant papers, arranged by category.

Each bubble contains papers of a single category.

On the right side you can refine your search textually or by date. Image
@OK_Maps @paperpile 3. Zooming into a category

Click on one of the bubbles to reveal the papers it is made up of.

All these papers will be semantically related and you might end up adding all of them to your initial review.

Click on the single papers, to reveal an abstract. Image
@OK_Maps @paperpile 4. Collect relevant papers

My favourite way to collect papers is @paperpile.

It's incredibly well integrated into my browser (Chrome) and smart.

Right Click on the DOI Link and select "Add to Paperpile". Image
@OK_Maps @paperpile 5. Paperpile UI

If you have ever used a Reference Manager, you will feel right at home.

Organise your references by label or folder.

It is really snappy, since I can just drag the labels from the left onto the paper. Image
@OK_Maps @paperpile Never heard of @paperpile?

It's a neat tool to collect academic papers, like Zotero or Mendeley.

Google "Paperpile Chrome Extension" to add the extension.

(Other browsers are supported as well.)

Price: 3$/month for academics + 30 day free trial Image
@OK_Maps @paperpile 6. Seed Collection

This initial collection is a "seed" for further digging.

Next tutorial will be on using @LitmapsApp to grow that small collection into a big set.

Follow @Artifexx if you don't want to miss it.

This is how I take notes while reading:
@OK_Maps @paperpile @LitmapsApp Summary

β–Ί Use @OK_Maps to go from search term β†’ papers
β–Ί More convenient than google, as papers are sorted by category
β–Ί Add relevant papers to @paperpile using chrome extension (right clicking menu)
β–Ί Open Access PDFs will auto download (and sync to google drive)
@OK_Maps @paperpile @LitmapsApp This Tweet is part of a series on literature research. It covers only the very first step.

Want to know what AI tools I use for the next steps? Follow @Artifexx

Want to gear up your academic journey - consider joining my small workshop on Jan 28th.

effortlessacademic.carrd.co

β€’ β€’ β€’

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More from @Artifexx

Apr 27
Plagiarism is a serious problem in academia.

Even a misplaced citation can massively damage your reputation.

Luckily AI is great at spotting plagiarism. Here is how:
πŸ‘‡ Image
1. Plagiarism is complex

If you look at the Harvard Guide it identifies 6 types of plagiarism.

"Uncited paraphrase" might be the most difficult to spot.

Here you might mention established findings from older papers without citing them. Image
2. Check for Plagiarism

After you have written your manuscript (yourself!). You might still end up with a few unintended instances of plagiarism.

This is where @teampaperpal comes in.

Make an account on paperpal . com and click "Plagiarism Check" in the sidebar. Image
Read 7 tweets
Apr 2
Don't have time to read a paper in detail?

Here is how to extract relevant information instantly:
πŸ‘‡ Image
The setup:

You have a rather large and relevant conceptual paper.

There are others and you are not sure if it's worth reading it.

You are however more interested in the "big picture" not the methods and details.
1. Upload the PDF to MyAIDrive(dot)com

Copy the link to the PDF.

MyAiDrive will analyze the PDF and make the results available in ChatGPT. Image
Read 8 tweets
Mar 26
Want to remember every paper you read?

Replace Zotero with a reference map and leverage your spatial memory.

Here is how:
πŸ‘‡

1. Reference manager vs map

Take a look at this screenshot: Which one looks more approachable and interesting? On the right is Zotero displaying all your papers in an endless list. On the left is a reference map.

Reference maps lay out your papers or PDFs in 2D on an endless surface called a "canvas" or "whiteboard". There are many tools that are capable of doing it: Obsidian is an obvious choice, Heptabase is great too, DrawIO is more complex but also good.

2. Zooming in and out / Finding things

Using the scroll wheel or pinch gesture you can fluidly navigate between the bird's eye view and the detailed view with your own notes on a single paper. Left: Detail, Right: All Papers.

To find papers you "fly up" and then "land on" the paper you are looking for. It feels incredibly natural and easier than scrolling through a list.

3. Why it works: Spatial Memory
Humans evolved moving around as hunter gatherers and spatial memory is a key trait needed for navigation. You leverage it by laying out your papers in a landscape, not a list. Your papers gain location and relation.

4. Headers and Topics: Location
Now that your papers are on a landscape or map you can have "countries" on this map. Every country is a topic, further subdivided in sub-topics. Here is the "Machine Learning Country" in the far south west of my map:

I can refer to "papers in the south west" - this is spatial memory being leveraged to remember where things are.

5. Semantic Connections: Relation

The next step is to build the "roads" between locations on the map. Simply draw an arrow and write on it what this relation signifies.

In the above example Swenson 2020 (top) wrote "the trait-demography relationship is weak (Yang 2018)".
So I read Yang 2018 (left) and added a connection. Later I found that (Lynn 2023) suggested a few solutions and linked those two as well.

By just looking at this map you can immediately write a sentence for your literature review. A narrative emerges and synthesis begins.

Summary:

Lay out papers on a spatial canvas using e.g. Obsidian instead of Zotero. Remembering them will be much easier because you can use your spatial memory. Synthesis starts happening automatically when you annotate connections between papers.

Do you do something like this?
Share a screenshot with us!Image
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This is one of the methods you can learn about in my upcoming webinar:

In this post I mentioned Heptabase and Obsidian as tools to achieve this results.

Here is a comparison between those two:

effortlessacademic.com/note-taking-to…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 14
6 Months ago my core tools barely included any AI.

Today things have shifted - a short update to this post:
1. Writing with 3 AI GPTs

When writing I consider 3 things:
- Finding citations to support the argument
- Putting ideas effectively on paper
- Skimming papers for logical relevance

ChatGPT can now do all of these with the help of GPTs:

effortlessacademic.com/a-complete-gui…
2. Semantic Search with SciSpace

Search for meaning not keywords. This is what AI enables us to do!

Check out this post:

Read 4 tweets
Mar 12
Webinar Apr 6th:
Literature Review & Academic Writing with AI

β†’ Find the most impactful literature quickly
β†’ Uncover reference gaps
β†’ Aid your writing process faithfully & ethically with AI

Link:

All details below:
πŸ‘‡effortlessacademic.com/elr3-webinar/Image
In this video I explain why the major changes in AI are such a big deal for literature reviews:
1. Semantic Literature Search

Semantic search allows you to obtain a comprehensive reading list on any literature review topic in under 1 minute.

This is brand new and released in January 2024.

We will look deeply at the caveats & solutions of this new method.
Read 11 tweets
Mar 5
How do you conduct a lit-review in 2024?

❌ Old way: Searching for papers by keywords on Google
βœ… New way: Semantic search using AI tools like SciSpace

Here is a demo:
πŸ‘‡ Image
1. AI Search

Internet search replaced tedious searches in libraries and journals.

Similarly, semantic search will replace the internet search.

AI allows to search answers to questions directly, rather than using keywords.

SciSpace is one such semantic search tool. Let's try!
2. @scispace_ on the GPT store

SciSpace is one of the top 10 GPTs (AI assistants) worldwide.

It harnesses the conversational abilities of ChatGPT and combines them with a database of 200 Million academic papers.

Start a conversation with this AI assistant:
Read 12 tweets

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