Connected Papers Review 2024: What It Is, How to Use It & Is It Worth It?

Connected Papers is a nifty tool that serves as a visual guide to the academic landscape. It's like having a personal cartographer that maps out the terrain of scientific literature for you. You just have to enter a paper identifier, and voila! You get a graph of related papers in the field. This is particularly useful for fields like Machine Learning where new papers are published at a dizzying pace. It's a great way to keep tabs on the latest research without having to manually track every new publication.

Creating bibliographies for your thesis is another area where Connected Papers shines. You can start with the references you know you want to include, and then use the tool to fill in the gaps. It's a much more efficient way to ensure you haven't missed any important papers that should be in your bibliography. Plus, it's a great way to discover relevant prior and derivative works.

The tool is not without its limitations, though. For one, it relies on the Semantic Scholar database, which, while extensive, does not cover every single scientific paper ever published. So, there's a chance you might not find some obscure or very old papers. Also, the tool is only as good as the data it's fed. If you enter a paper identifier for a poorly written or irrelevant paper, the graph you get will be of little use.

On the bright side, Connected Papers is free to use in a limited fashion. There's no paywall to access all its features for up to 5 graphs per month, which is a big plus for cash-strapped students and researchers. However, the tool does offer a paid plan for those who want unlimited access.

All in all, Connected Papers is a handy tool for anyone involved in academic research. It's not going to revolutionize the way we do research, but it's a valuable aid that can help you navigate the vast sea of scientific literature with a bit more ease.