How to Use SciSpace for Academic Research: A Step-by-Step Guide
Quick answer
Use SciSpace as a sequence rather than opening every tool at once: define the question, discover and compare papers with Literature Review, save useful sources in Library, and interrogate individual papers with Chat with PDF. Use SciSpace Agent only when the work has multiple connected stages, and verify source passages, methods, and numbers before exporting the result.
About this video
This tutorial demonstrates the use of the AI-powered research platform SciSpace for academic research [L1, L15]. The session provides a walkthrough of the platform’s tools and features, highlighting its ability to provide accurate citations from a database of 300 million research papers compared to standard LLMs [L6, L15, L18, L23].
This walkthrough introduces SciSpace as an end-to-end research workspace rather than a collection of isolated AI tools. It shows how to move from finding relevant literature to reading, organizing, comparing, and acting on the evidence while keeping the researcher in control.
What this tutorial covers
- Navigate the main SciSpace research tools and understand when to use each one.
- Turn a broad topic into a focused literature search and a manageable set of papers.
- Read difficult papers with Chat with PDF and organize sources in the Library.
- Use SciSpace Agent for multi-step tasks such as evidence synthesis, analysis, and report creation.
Key concepts explained
- Tool selection
- Search, paper reading, library management, writing, and agentic workflows solve different parts of the research process.
- Source-grounded research
- Important answers should remain traceable to papers, tables, methods, or uploaded files.
- Iterative research
- Better results come from refining the question, constraints, and requested output rather than relying on one broad prompt.
- Human validation
- SciSpace accelerates research work, but scope, interpretation, and final decisions remain with the researcher.
How to try it in SciSpace
- 1
Open SciSpace and begin with a clearly defined research topic or question.
Write a one-page research brief before choosing a tool. Include the question, population or context, date range, source boundary, and final deliverable so the first action has a clear endpoint.
- 2
Use Literature Review to discover papers, apply filters, and compare relevant studies.
Save the search terms, filters, dates, and comparison fields you use. Inspect a small set of relevant and irrelevant results, then refine the search before building a larger paper set.
- 3
Save the strongest papers to your Library, then use Chat with PDF to clarify methods, results, limitations, and terminology.
Create a named Library collection and capture a consistent note for each paper: citation, design, sample, main result, limitation, and why it matters. In Chat with PDF, request the supporting passage for consequential answers.
- 4
Open SciSpace Agent when the task requires several connected steps, such as screening studies and producing an evidence table.
Give Agent a task brief with required files, deliverables, exclusions, and human checkpoints. Review its proposed plan before it performs large searches, screening, calculations, or report generation.
- 5
Review citations and source passages, refine the output, and export only after checking the original evidence.
Open the original paper, table, or dataset for every high-impact claim. Verify numbers, methods, and references, then save the prompt, sources, output, and review notes together before export.
Worked example
A first-year doctoral student is exploring whether hybrid work affects the well-being of early-career researchers. They use SciSpace Literature Review to locate recent studies, save a focused set in Library, and open two pivotal papers in Chat with PDF to inspect the methods and limitations. Only after the scope is stable do they use SciSpace Agent to create a comparison table with source links. The useful output is a compact evidence map showing which claims are supported, where studies disagree, and which papers still require close reading—not a generic summary of every result.
Practice prompt
I am studying [topic]. Help me define a focused research question, identify the main concepts and synonyms, find recent peer-reviewed studies, and create a comparison table with methods, sample, findings, and limitations.
Key takeaway
Use SciSpace as a connected workflow: search first, inspect the evidence, organize what matters, and then ask AI to synthesize or create an output.
Frequently asked questions
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