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

A list of 60 apps for academic writing and research:

[Repost if you find this list useful.] Finding Research Gaps

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

Intergrating AI with Academic Databases

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

Just got access to ChatGPT's Deep Research function and tried it with a long prompt👇

The prompt asks ChatGPT to collect data from a specific database, analyze it, and write a report. Also mentions a website that shouldn't be used.

Took a while but the results are very impressive🤯 The first time you run a prompt like this, Deep Research asks you for certain clarifications.

I answered its questions and then it got to work.

It looked up 57 sources before it started compiling its answer.

Looking up relevant sources took it around 10 minutes. But compiling took it around an hour. It's a bit slow at the moment but that's expected. It will surely become more efficient.

How to organize and summarize research papers with Zotero and Scholarcy:

You can learn this workflow in 15 minutes. 1. Open your Zotero desktop app and click on "File" and select "New Collection."

Choose a name for your collection. Keep the collection open.

ChatGPT just rolled out updated custom instructions.

This makes it very easy to customize ChatGPT for academic work.

And also to get rid of fake citaitons to papers that don't exist.

Here's how to customize ChatGPT (template included): 1. Open ChatGPT and click on your avatar in the top-right corner.

Select "Customize ChatGPT" from the drop-down menu. Then enable custom instructions for new chats.

You will see four questions.

Trump is threatening Denmark over Greenland.

I lived in the US 🇺🇸 for several years and now I live in Denmark 🇩🇰

Here's a comparison of the two countries (based on my experiences):

1. Free Health 🇺🇸You or your employer have to pay for health insurance. The US is the only country in the developed world without universal healthcare. More than 100 million Americans are in medical debt.

🇩🇰Denmark has universal healthcare. Anyone living in Denmark — citizen or alien — is issued with a yellow-colored health card with the name of their primary care doctor. You can see your doctor at no charge.

If your doctor refers you to a specialist and they have a long waitlist, you can see a private doctor. In that case, the municipality (kommune) will pay for your treatment.

Dental, chiropractic, and prescriptions are also subsidized.

China's Deep Seek is as good as ChatGPT o1.

Plus, it's open source and free to use.

Here are eight ways you can use Deep Seek for academic purposes: 1. Brainstorming Ideas

Ask a couple of "warm up" questions.

Do you know about X or Y. Then ask how X can be used in a specific case.

Since it's connected to the internet, it will also give you relevant links.

ChatGPT just introduced Operator, an AI Agent that can do browse the internet on its own and do tasks for you.

This means literature reviews will soon be outsourced to customized AI Agents supervised by experts. Plus, little to no hallucinations.

Here's a review of Operator👇 1. To use it, go to operator[.]chatgpt[.]com

Operator requires a ChatGPT Pro subscription for $200/m. It's available only in the US at the moment.

I asked Operator how it can help in my academic work. It gave me a short list of things.