Don't start your lit review with a question Dear Scholar, Whenever you look for advice on literature reviews, it always starts with defining either a question or a topic. But this is backwards since good questions can only come once you are substantially familiar with something. Instead, I suggest starting your literature review with an overview, drilling down to your niche, learning it intimately and then, as your last step, defining the question. This article explores one of the many topics...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Research Maps are the key to making new discoveries. Dear Scholar, The most frequent question people ask me during my literature review webinars is, "Have you tried tool X"? The answer is yes; I have tried almost every tool, but most of them are not mature enough and have not stood the test of time. While the tool is not as important as your ability to use it and your knowledge, a good tool can greatly speed up your literature review. This is what this week's email is about. In other news, I...
19 days ago • 2 min read
New ChatGPT version with reasoning capabilities: o1 Dear Scholar, This week, OpenAI has released a new version of ChatGPT: o1. It is a step up from ChatGPT-4o (Who comes up with these names!?) in reasoning, math and coding, but it also comes at the drawback of being slower and more expensive. In today's post, I compare the two models for academics: The New Chat GPT update: o1 vs GPT-4o (12 min read) This article explains the differences and similarities between the two models and contains a...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Reading 25 papers in 1 hour with SciSummary Dear Scholar, Over the last couple of weeks, I came across a new tool for academics: SciSummary. I talked to its developers and figured out a new workflow for using it. Despite my initial scepticism of AI summaries for academic papers, one feature won me over: "Contrasting summaries of a narrow focus area." SciSummary asks you to pick a range of papers and define a topic of interest first. Then, it reads these papers and compares them along this...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
How to setup and use Google Docs for Academic Writing + Addons Dear Scholar, I recently worked with three co-authors on a paper and was eager to try Google Docs for collaborative academic writing. Initially, the experience was disappointing; for example, figures could not be numbered automatically, and reference management was excruciatingly slow... After much trial and error, I finally found the right add-ons and workarounds for most issues, and Google Docs became my best friend. In this...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Workflow: Automatically find research gaps through references in large review papers Dear Scholar, My upcoming webinar on spotting research gaps is just a week away, and over a 100 participants have already joined. If you missed it, don't hesitate to get your ticket. In this week's newsletter, I am presenting a key method that will be part of the upcoming webinar: Spotting research gaps automatically using references of review papers. In other news, if you have been following me on Twitter/X...
4 months ago • 1 min read
In Depth Review of Consensus AI for Lit Reviews Dear Scholar, Every week, I am approached by new AI companies that offer help with academic writing or literature searches. It is easy to want to jump to the next thing and proclaim, "AI just killed lit reviews". This is why I decided to go instead in-depth and drill into every detail of the Consensus App. This tool has been around for years and was routinely featured in the ChatGPT store. I have introduced it as part of the Effortless...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Crafting Research Questions with ResearchKick Dear Scholar, Asking the right question is half the answer in academia. Questions need to be novel (to be published) but also outside the sphere of what is known (to be able to answer them). They are also key to an engaging discussion and a great way to prepare a conference presentation. In this newsletter edition we are taking a deep dive into ResearchKick a conversational AI tool that helps you brainstorm research questions and finds prospective...
6 months ago • 1 min read
Final call to the Literature Review Webinar Dear Scholar, This week I have been preparing for the upcoming webinar in less than 18 hours. It is going to be phenomenal and over 400 academics already signed up for it. So what is the literature review process about? Here is an explaining diagram I will present tomorrow: The webinar is centered around 8 key strategies and additionally goes into note-taking and academic writing. All examples are from my own research in the last month that were...
6 months ago • 2 min read