Literature-Review on The Augmented Scholar

Literature Note Template (Zotero + Obsidian)

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How the Template Works

When you trigger the template in Obsidian, Templater runs a script that reads your frontmatter and optionally queries the Zotero API (if you supply the citekey). In the simplest version, you fill in the citekey manually and the template structures everything else.

Elicit — AI Research Assistant

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What Elicit Actually Does

Elicit is the AI tool I recommend for literature review — not ChatGPT, not Perplexity. The reason: Elicit is purpose-built for academic papers and actually retrieves real papers from Semantic Scholar, not hallucinated citations.

Perplexity AI — AI-Powered Search for Researchers

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Why Perplexity Beats Google for Research Exploration

Standard search engines give you a list of links to click through. Perplexity reads those sources and synthesises a direct answer with numbered citations you can verify in one click.

Research Rabbit — Free AI Paper Discovery

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What Research Rabbit Does (and Why It’s Free)

Research Rabbit builds a visual map of connected papers from any seed reference you give it. It’s free because it syncs with Zotero and is funded as a research infrastructure tool.

Connected Papers — Visual Citation Graph Builder

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Connected Papers in 60 Seconds

You give Connected Papers a DOI or paper title. It generates a force-directed graph where:

Node size = number of citations (prominent papers appear larger)
Node colour = age of publication
Edge thickness = similarity between papers

Papers that appear close together share many references and citations — they belong to the same research cluster.

OpenAI API Structured Outputs: Extract Paper Metadata Fast

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Extract Research Paper Metadata Using OpenAI’s Structured Outputs

You’re three weeks into a systematic literature review. You’ve found 200 relevant papers. Now comes the part that makes researchers lose sleep: manually extracting authors, publication year, methodology, key findings, and DOI from each one—copying, pasting, reformatting, praying the data stays consistent.

The Researcher's Guide to Using AI Without Losing Scientific Integrity

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

AI tools are the most significant productivity shift in academic research since Google Scholar. They are also, if used without a framework, a reliable way to publish a retraction.

This guide gives you the framework.