Connected Papers

Connected Papers is a visual discovery tool that helps researchers find relevant academic papers and understand how studies relate to one another. Instead of relying only on keyword searches or citation lists, it creates an interactive graph of research papers based on their similarity to a selected starting paper. Researchers can use it to identify foundational studies, find newer research, and find related work across a subject area. The platform is particularly useful when starting a literature review or entering an unfamiliar research field. It works directly in a web browser without requiring software installation.

How Connected Papers Works

Connected Papers builds a visual network around an academic paper selected by the user. It analyzes relationships between publications and displays similar studies in an interactive graph.

• Enter an origin paper: Search using a paper's title, keyword, DOI, or URL. This becomes the starting point for the research graph.
• Analyze related research: Connected Papers searches its academic paper data sources, including the Semantic Scholar Open Research Corpus, to identify relevant publications. Its process considers a pool of candidate papers related to the selected study.
• Calculate paper similarity: The tool uses citation relationships, co-citation, and bibliographic coupling to identify connections. Papers can be related even when they do not directly cite one another.
• Generate a visual graph: The platform displays related papers on a two-dimensional canvas. The graph uses several visual indicators:
  • Node proximity: Papers placed closer together generally have stronger topical similarities.
  • Circle size: Larger circles represent papers with higher citation counts.
  • Circle color: Lighter colors indicate older publications, while darker colors represent newer work.
  • Connecting lines: Thicker lines indicate stronger similarity between papers.
• Find and organize papers: Click individual nodes to inspect studies, explore prior and derivative works, and expand your research into related topics. You can also sort results and export citation information.

How We Rated Connected Papers

We assessed Connected Papers based on its paper discovery capabilities, visual research graphs, similarity analysis, Prior Works and Derivative Works views, filtering options, export features, ease of use, and pricing. We also considered its limitations for full-text research and systematic literature reviews. This review is based on the supplied product information and available feature details, not independent hands-on testing.