Mushtaq Bilal, PhD Profile picture
Dec 16, 2023 15 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Connect Google Bard with your Zotero library and make it your research assistant.

Plus, get paywalled articles for free.

Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how to do it:
Start by downloading Google Drive for Desktop.

Then open your Google Drive and create a folder titled "Zotero PDFs."
Next, go to zotfile(dot)com and download a Zotero add-on called Zotfile.

This will download an xpi (pronounced zippy) file to your computer.
Open your Zotero. Click on "Tools" and select "Add-ons."

This will open Zotero's Add-on Manager.

Click on the gear-like icon in the top-right corner and select "Install Add-on From File."

Navigate to the xpi file you just downloaded and open it.

This will add Zotfile to your Zotero. Restart Zotero to complete Zotfile's installation.
Next, click on "Edit" and select "Preferences" in your Zotero.

In Zotero Preferences, click on "Advanced" and then "Files and Folders."

Notice the Default Location given under the Data Directory Location. This is the location where Zotero stores your PDFs.

We want Zotero to store our PDFs in our Google Drive. Zotfile will help us do that.
Click on "Tools" and select "Zotfile Preferences." You will see two fields.

Enter Zotero's Default Location of PDFs in the top field.

In the bottom field titled "Custom location," enter the location of the folder you created in your Google Drive.

You can also use the "Choose" button to navigate to the Zotero PDFs folder in your Google Drive.

Now Zotero will store all your PDFs in your Google Drive.
Click on "File" and select "New Collection."

Choose a name for your collection.
Look up papers on Google Scholar or Pubmed or your university's library.

Click on the Zotero Connector in the top-right corner and Zotero will open an Item Selector for you.

(If you are not familiar with the Zotero Connector, please let me know and I will post a link to a Zotero 101 tutorial for you.)

Select the papers you want to read and Zotero will save them in the collection you just created. Click on "Done."

Go to your Zotero collection and you will see your papers there.
To get Zotero to retrieve PDFs of paywalled articles, you will need to install the Sci Hub add-on.

Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how to do that:
Go to the "Zotero PDFs" folder in your Google Drive and you will see all the PDFs there.

Having Zotero save your PDFs in Google Drive also gives you a backup in case you don't want to purchase extra Zotero storage.

If you can afford, please consider purcharing extra storage to help the good folks over at Zotero.Zotero PDFs showing up in Google Drive.
Open Bard by going to bard(dot)google(dot)com.

Click on the puzzle-like icon in the top-right corner to open Bard Extensions.

Enable Google Workspace extension. This will connect Bard with your Google Drive where you have all your Zotero PDFs.
Ask Bard to give you a list of PDFs in your Google Drive.

Once it gives you the list, you can ask Bard to summarize a particular paper and ask other questions about it.

You can also use Bard to help you brainstorm research questions. It will give you suggestions based on the papers in your Drive.
Want to learn more about how to supercharge your academic writing with AI apps?

I have a complete tutorial for you.

4,300+ academics including those at Harvard, Stanford, and Yale are using it.

You can get it by clicking the link below:
efficientacademicwriter.carrd.co
Found this thread on intergating Bard with Zotero helpful?

1. Scroll to the top and hit Like on the first tweet.

2. Bookmark it so you can come back to it later.

3. Follow me for more tutorials on how to use AI apps for academic purposes.
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More from @MushtaqBilalPhD

May 25
Finding common themes across papers and extracting relevant information takes a lot of time and effort.

Chat Academia now lets you do this in a matter of minutes.

Upload papers, identify themes, and it will give you a table with required information.

Here's how to use it: A table generated by Chat Academia containing columns for summary, obbjectives, conclusion, and intervention for multiple academic papers.
1. Go to and sign in to your account.

On the homepage, you will see an option "Paper Table." chatacademia.com
2. Click on "Paper Table" and then "Create a new table" in the top-right corner.
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May 16
Mapping connections between research topics and publications is a time-consuming task.

NextNet is an AI app that can help you with it. It lets you run visual searches for topics related to life sciences.

It's free and very easy to use: A graph generated by NextNet.
1. Go to getnextnet[.]com and click on "Get NextNet free."

Sign up for a free account.
2. Select "Explorer" in the left bar and type in your query.

NextNet will generate a graph containing nodes about diseases, drugs, genes, research publications, and so on.
Read 6 tweets
May 15
Finding research gaps takes a lot of time and labor.

Research Kick can help you with it.

It analyzes millions of papers in Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, and PubMed to help you find research gaps — in minutes.

Here's how to use it: A screenshot of Research Kick showing that a research question has not been adequately answered in published literature.
1. Go to and click on "Get started."

Sign up with your email or Google account.

To use the app, you will need to buy a subscription plan:

10,000 credits for $9/month
120,000 credits for $99/year researchkick.com
2. This is how your Research Kick would look like.

It offers multiple LLMs including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini.

Select a model you want to use.
Read 10 tweets
May 15
Most AI apps for research need paid subscriptions, but Bohrium is free.

• Integrates Deep Seek with databases containing 160M+ papers.

• Answers questions with references to published papers.

Here's how to use Bohrium to supercharge your literature discovery:
1. Go to bohrium(dot)com and click on "Log in" in the bottom-left corner.

Enter your email to sign up for a free account.
2. In the bottom of the chat box, you will see options for AI models and databases.

Bohrium has integrated databases for natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, and the humanities.

Select "DeepThink" for detailed answers.
Read 8 tweets
May 3
Apps like ChatGPT are unsuitable for scientific research. They generate fake references to papers that don't exist.

So, researchers at Future House built an AI scientist.

It generates detailed literature reviews with references to state-of-the-art research. And it's free.🧵
1. Go to futurehouse[.]org.

Click on "Platform" in the top-right corner. Sign up for a free account.

Future House has four AI agents:

• Crow: Concise search
• Falcon: Detailed literature reviews
• Owl: Finding literature gaps
• Pheonix: Chemistry-related queries
2. Select "Crow" and type in your question.

It'll look up relevant sources, gather evidence, and compose an answer. Click on "Results" to read it.

Hover your cursor over an endnote and it will show you the abstract of the paper cited.

A Crow search takes ~5 min.
Read 9 tweets
Apr 30
NotebookLM was already one of the best AI apps for academic work.
Now it supports 50+ languages.

• Summarize papers
• Generate audio overviews of papers
• Ask question about papers
• Prepare study guides

All this in your own language and that too for free.
1. Go to notebooklm[.]google[.]com.

Click on "Create new notebook" and upload a paper.

NotebookLM will give you its summary.
2. Click on "Settings" in the top-right corner and select "Output Language."

From the dropdown menu, select your language and click on "Save."
Read 10 tweets

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