Building Complex Research Diagrams with AI Dear Reader,Having read so much content on AI and followed the news closely, I sense a shift in the collective enthusiasm for AI's transformative potential. From one angle, we start realising that the claims of AI's practical usefulness are overblown. An MIT study found that: Despite $30–40 billion in enterprise investment into GenAI, this report uncovers a surprising result in that 95% of organizations are getting zero return. From another angle,...
10 days ago • 3 min read
SciSpace (Sponsor) New in SciSpace: Verified Reports to check your references AI tools invent references, and one fake source can sink a paper. SciSpace Verified Reports checks every claim, removes hallucinated citations, and lets you open each source inline — free. A feature researchers shouldn't miss out on.» Run your first verified report (free) Discount Codes:JNEFF40 (40% off annual)JNEFF20 (20% off monthly) Connecting Zotero and Claude Dear Reader,What did people in the late 17th century...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Paperpal (Sponsor) New in Paperpal: a Reference Quality Audit for your bibliography. Before you submit, it scans every citation for retracted papers, broken DOIs, missing peer-reviewed versions, dated sources, and AI hallucinations. You get a flagged report with severity levels and suggestions for fixes.» Try Paperpal Reference Check Discount Codes:ILYAPRIME30 (30% off) Physical Books + Obsidian Dear Reader,I love reading physical books for my research, because they feel more purposeful than...
24 days ago • 2 min read
PlotStudio: AI Agent for end-to-end data analysis Dear Reader, During my PhD, there was one name that kept being summoned over and over again: Luise.Whenever people would get stuck with some data analysis, they would always eventually end up saying, "We have to ask Luise". Luise was, of course, a statistician, and every student had access to her for a total of 8 hours during their programme. She helped so many students debug and write their code and water-proof statistical assumptions (which,...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Automation: Obsidian's missing feature solved Dear Reader, Most people who start managing information digitally with Obsidian run into the same problem: Their notes resemble a collection of summaries, rather than a functioning network of knowledge. Think of your notes like a house: A collection of planks and boards is not yet a house. It is the way these elements are connected that creates a house. How quickly you can build a house and how stable it is depends on the quality and uniformity of...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Paperpal (Sponsor) For researchers juggling multiple tools to check grammar, plagiarism, and AI detection, Paperpal now brings everything together in one place. With the new full paper check, you can upload your draft and run all three checks at once, helping you catch issues early and move to submission with greater confidence.» Try Paperpal Document Check Discount Codes:ILYAPRIME30 (30% off) Avoid overwhelm & procrastination through multi-lens project management Dear Reader, Most academics...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Conceptual Literature Review Dear Reader, A literature review starts with reading. But what is reading other than unpacking packaged information into a set of ideas that link together in meaningful ways in your head? What if we could start the process with the mindmap? This is what I call a conceptual literature review. Given a few papers, it uses AI to extract concepts and claims and create an interlinked information network. The output is an Obsidian vault with 100s of connections and...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Consensus (Sponsor) Consensus is one of the most advanced AI literature search tools utilising both the reference network and AI semantic similarity to find relevant papers and summarise their findings. I've used Consensus almost daily while writing my PhD. » Try Consensus Discount Codes:effortlessacademic (25% off) The most minimal knowledge management system for beginners (+ video walkthrough) Dear Reader, I recently introduced a colleague to Obsidian and have pitched it to our lab many...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Paperpal (Sponsor) For researchers juggling multiple tools to check grammar, plagiarism, and AI detection, Paperpal now brings everything together in one place. With the new full paper check, you can upload your draft and run all three checks at once, helping you catch issues early and move to submission with greater confidence.» Try Paperpal Document Check Discount Codes:ILYAPRIME30 (30% off) What are AI skills, and how to use them well? Dear Reader, In the early days of AI (...long...
3 months ago • 2 min read