Most AI apps need paid subscriptions, but the Chinese are building apps that are free.

Bohrium is a free AI app built for researchers.

• Combines Deep Seek's reasoning model with academic databases.
• Gives detailed answers and cites published papers.

Here's how to use it: 1. Go to bohrium[.]com and click on "Log in" in the bottom-left corner.

Enter your email to sign up for a free account.

Finding relevant papers for literature review takes a lot of time and labor.

You can run visual searches from within Zotero to supercharge your literature — for free.

You can also do it with Mendeley and EndNote.

Here's how: 1. Go to github(dot)com/inciteful-xyz/inciteful-zotero-plugin

Scroll down a little and click on "Version 7 - latest release."

This will download an xpi file on your computer.

Biggest flaw of AI apps: hallucinations — fake references to papers that don't even exist.

Research Flow is a new app that solves this problem. It uses full text of papers to answer your questions.

Here's an overview of its features: 1. Go to rflow(dot)ai

Click on "Try for free" to sign up for a free account.

Google Scholar is useful, but it's stuck in the past.

Ai2 is building a new AI-powered search engine for researchers.

It looks for papers, follows citations, evaluates relevance, runs follow-up queries, and shows you only relevant papers — and it's free: 1. Go to paperfinder.allen(dot)ai/chat and sign up for a free account.

Type in your question and hit Enter/Return.

Ai2 will start a search. It will mimic a human researcher in looking up papers, and then evaluating/ranking them for relevance.

NotebookLM is (probably) the best reading assistant for research papers.

It's free and you can use it to:

• Summarize papers
• Ask question about papers
• Prepare study guides
• Create mind maps
• Generate podcasts based on papers

And it's very easy to use: 1. Go to

Click on "Create new" and upload a paper.

NotebookLM will give you a summary of the paper. notebooklm.google.com

AI generates fake references to research papers that don't even exist.

Google is on course to solve this problem.

Gemini Deep Research generates well-researched articles with references to published sources.

And it's free!

Here's how to use it: 1. Open your Google Gemini and click on "Deep Research."

Type in your question. Gemini will understand your question and create a research plan based on the question.

How to make mind maps for any research paper:

This will take you 5 minutes and you can do it for free. 1. Go to ChatGPT and upload the paper you want to make a mind map of.

Paste the prompt below and hit Enter/Return. ChatGPT will give you a code block. Copy it.

Prompt:
Act as an expert academic and go through this document very carefully and understand it as best as you can. Based on your understanding, build a mind map in which you organize the document hierarchically into main topics and subtopics.

Once you are done, write markmap.js code for the mind map with nodes organized hierarchically. The mind map should be visually appealing, easy to follow, and should make the document digestible. Don't give me anything other than the markmap.js code.

One of the biggest challenges while doing a literature review:

How to find common themes across multiple papers and synthesize available information.

Lateral is an AI app that can help you with it.

Best part: It doesn't hallucinate at all.

Here's how to use Lateral: 1. Go to lateral[.]io and sign up for a free account.

Lateral gives you 500 page credits for free.

Finding research gaps takes a lot of time and labor.

Research Kick Start is an AI app that 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: 1. Go to and click on "Get started" to sign up for an account.

You'll need to buy a subscription to use the app. researchkick.com/start

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the next big thing in AI.

It lets you integrate academic databases with LLMs.

But most academics don't know about it.

Here's how to connect Claude with PubMed using MCP (in less than 15 min): 1. Go to claude[.]ai/download

Download the Claude desktop app and install it.

Receiving thoughtful feedback on your academic writing is always a challenge.

Thesify is an app that can help you with it. It evaluates your writing and gives you considered feedback.

And you can get started on it for free.

Here's how to use Thesify: 1. Go to thesify[.]ai and sign up for a free account.

Four AI-powered apps that generate detailed research reports with references to published sources:

1. Storm (Free)

Go to storm[.]genie[.]stanford[.]edu and log in. Type in your question in the search box. Storm will ask you the purpose of your question. Type in your answer.

Storm will generate a detailed report with references.

You can also download the report as a PDF.

Open Slum had links to Libgen, Sci-Hub, and Z-library to access millions of academic books and papers.

Got shut down. We shouldn't have used it.

We should help billion-dollar academic publishers get richer.

Anyway, here's how to access these libraries:

🚨Don't do this! 1. Don't go to annas-archive[.]org

This will give you access to 42M+ books and 98M+ papers. You don't want that.

ChatGPT's latest model 4.5 is now available.

Combined with Deep Research, it can produce well-researcheds article with real references in a few minutes.

And you don't need any fancy prompting techniques either.

Check it out👇 I gave it a simple prompt asking how to read children's literature as world literature.

It asked for a clarification. I replied that I would like to theorize children's literature as world literature.

Ten minutes later, I have a detailed, well-researched article.

Zotero Tutorial 2

Zoteor has 10,500+ citation styles. This makes it very easy to switch between citations styles.

Draft your paper in one citation style and change it to another — in seconds.

Here's how to do it: 1. Open your draft in MS Word and open the Zotero tab.

Click on "Add/Edit Citation." In the red search bar, enter the name of the author you want to cite.

Select the relevant source and hit Enter/Return. Zotero will add your citation.

Zotero Tutorial 1

How to automate your citations and bibliography:

You can learn this in 15 minutes, and it will save you hours of work. 1. Go to zotero[.]org and click on the "Download" button.

Download the app and install it on your computer.

AI can now solve PhD-level problems.

Can AI write a good abstract for a research paper?

Here's a comparison of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Deep Seek, and Grok: 1. ChatGPT o1

I uploaded a draft of my paper and asked ChatGPT o1 to write a precisely worded abstract of 150 words foregrounding my argument.

This is a useful abstract but not very precise. It stays within the word limit though.

I used to think AI can't do a literature review. I'm begining to change my mind.

SciSpace just introduced Deep Review.

It generates well-researched overviews on any given topic — in minutes.

Here's how to use it to supercharge your literature review: 1. Go to typeset[.]io and sign in to your account.

You will see three options under the search bar: Standar, High Quality, and Deep Review.

Select Deep Review.

Libgen, Sci-Hub, and Z-library had millions of pirated academic books and papers.

So, they were shut down. We shouldn't use them anyway.

We should help billion-dollar academic publishers get richer.

Anyway, here's how to access these libraries:

Don't do this! 1. Don't go to open-slum[.]org.

Because there you will see links to LibGen, Anna's Archive, Z-Library, and Sci-Hub.

AI will automate literature reviews sooner than we expect.

Elicit can now generate detailed research reports based on published papers — in less than 10 minutes.

Here's how to do it: 1. Go to elicit[.]com and sign in your account.

Sign up if you don't have one already.

An updated list of 60 apps for academic writing and research:

[Please like and repost if you bookmark this list.] Finding Research Gaps

• Research Kick Start
researchkick[.]com/start
Pricing: $9/m, $99/year

Intergrating AI with Academic Databases

• Research Kick Chat
researchkick[.]com/chat
Pricing: $30/m