Search, extract, or report?
Elicit is three workflows sharing one interface, and knowing which one you are in decides whether you end up with a reading list, a dataset, or an answer.
Find papers
Question-first search: you type a full research question and Elicit ranks papers by how directly they address it, with a short summary of the top results. Best when you are still mapping what exists.
Extraction tables
Add columns like sample size, intervention, or main outcome, and Elicit fills them across dozens of papers at once. Every cell links back to the passage it came from, so the table stays checkable.
Research report
Elicit screens papers against your criteria and drafts a cited synthesis across the ones that pass. The right tool once your question is tightly scoped, and overkill before that.
What you will do in the lesson
You answer and try things, step by step.
- Ask a question, not keywords. You rewrite a keyword-style query as a full research question and compare what comes back. The gap between the two result sets is the whole point of Elicit.
- Add a column. You pick an extraction column, sample size, and watch it fill in across a set of papers. Then you decide which cells you would trust as-is.
- Chase a cell to its source. Click through from one extracted value to the passage behind it and check whether the paper really says that. This is the habit that makes extraction tables safe to use.
- Screen before you synthesize. You apply include and exclude criteria to a batch of results, the way a systematic review would. Half the value of Elicit is in what you throw out.
- Know what Elicit cannot tell you. You judge a question the literature has not settled and practice saying so. A tool that finds evidence cannot manufacture it.
Before you start
Does Elicit read full papers or just abstracts?
Search runs over titles, abstracts, and metadata, while extraction works best with full text. You can upload your own PDFs to get complete extraction on the papers you care about most.
Can I trust the numbers in an extraction table?
Treat each cell as a claim with a receipt attached. Elicit links every value to the passage it came from, and the lesson drills the habit of actually clicking through before you cite anything.
Do I need to install anything for this lesson?
No. The lesson runs in the frame on this page, with no signup and no download. There is a free way to try Elicit itself afterwards if you want to keep going.
I already ask ChatGPT research questions. Why Elicit?
ChatGPT answers from what its model remembers, which is why it sometimes invents citations. Elicit retrieves from an indexed corpus of real papers and shows you the source behind every claim. Many researchers use both: ChatGPT to think, Elicit to verify.
