Help & Documentation

Your home base. The Dashboard gives you a quick snapshot of your research library — how many papers you have, how many are in progress or completed, and your average reading completion across all papers.

• Stats overview — Total papers, in-progress count, completed count, and an average completion percentage at the top of the page.
• Recently Updated — Your three most recently touched papers so you can pick up right where you left off.
• Not Started nudge — A banner appears when you have unread papers waiting, with a quick link to filter them in your library.

The central place to manage all your academic papers. Add papers, track your reading status, and dive into a structured breakdown of any paper.

• Add a paper — Paste a title, DOI, or abstract. ScholarMethod extracts the metadata and sets it up for structured reading.
• Status tracking — Mark papers as Not Started, In Progress, or Completed. Filter the library by status to focus your reading sessions.
• Structured breakdown — Click any paper to open its guided reading view — a section-by-section breakdown with notes and AI-generated summaries.
• Completion percentage — Each paper tracks how much of the breakdown you have completed, shown as a progress indicator on the card.
• Paper limit — Free accounts can have up to 3 active papers. Upgrade to Pro for unlimited papers.

A timed, 7-section structured reading drill designed to help you extract the most important information from a paper quickly and methodically.

• 7-section format — Guides you through Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion in a structured sequence.
• AI comprehension analysis — After completing the drill, you receive an AI-powered analysis of how well you understood the paper based on your notes.
• Session history — Past skim sessions are saved so you can review your notes and analysis at any time.

An academic term lookup tool built for research. Look up field-specific terminology, statistical concepts, and methodology terms without leaving the app.

• Search terms — Type any academic or technical term to get a clear, research-focused definition.
• Context-aware definitions — Definitions are tailored for academic reading, not general usage, so you get the meaning that matters in research contexts.
• Word limit — Free accounts can save up to 10 terms. Pro accounts can save up to 100.

Compare 2 to 4 papers side by side across every breakdown section. Useful for literature reviews, identifying methodological differences, or synthesizing findings across studies.

• Select papers — Choose 2 to 4 papers from your library to compare in a single view.
• Section-by-section columns — Each breakdown section (Abstract, Methods, Results, etc.) is shown in parallel columns so you can read across papers at once.
• Saved comparisons — Comparisons are saved automatically so you can return to them without re-selecting papers each time.

Extract and manage the reference lists from your papers. Quickly see what sources a paper cites, and add cited works directly to your library for further reading.

• Extract references — Run an extraction on any paper in your library to pull out its full citation list.
• Add to library — Spotted a citation worth reading? Add it to your library in one click to continue building your research collection.

Collaborative discussion spaces centered around a specific paper. Create a Journal Club, invite your research group, and discuss findings, methods, and insights together in one place.

• Create a club — Give it a title, an optional description, and link the paper by title, DOI, or URL so members can access it directly.
• Invite members — Search for collaborators by name or institution. Only users with a ScholarMethod account can be invited.
• Threaded discussion — Post comments and reply to others. Use @mentions to notify specific members in a thread.
• Unread activity — A badge on the sidebar and an indicator on each club card shows you when there is new discussion you have not seen.
• Close or delete — Owners can close a club to make it read-only (archived) or permanently delete it. Members can leave a club at any time.

Manage your account, update your profile, and handle your subscription.

• Profile — Update your display name and email address.
• Password — Change your account password at any time from this page.
• Subscription — View your current plan, upgrade to Pro, or manage billing through the Stripe customer portal.
• Organization — If you are part of an organization license, your team and seat information appears here.