Connected Papers: Mastering Visual Discovery for Research Networking11 min read

This article explains Connected Papers, an AI support tool for researchers.

When starting new research or investigating references for a paper you are currently writing, it takes time to find relevant papers.

You may even miss important papers despite spending a huge amount of time.

“I want to find all the relevant papers without missing any.”

“I want to start by reading the most relevant papers.”

With Connected Papers, you can reduce the time spent on Literature Search and visually determine which papers are most relevant.

The Free Plan is sufficiently useful.

Official Website: Connected papers (https://www.connectedpapers.com/)

7 Key Features of Connected Papers

Key points

Feature of Connected Papers (1): Visualize related papers

Enter the title, DOI, PMID, keywords, etc. of the original paper on the top page.

The target original paper is displayed, so select and click it.

A graph of related papers will be created.

In this way, the amount and relevance of related papers are visually easy to understand.

Clicking on each circle or the list on the left will display an explanation of each paper on the right.

You can also recreate the graph based on each related paper displayed by pressing “Open graph”.

You can recreate the added graph based on the displayed related papers by pressing “Add origin”.

Feature of Connected Papers (2): Circle size represents the number of Citations

The size of the circle represents the number of Citations.

The more Citations, the larger the circle; the fewer, the smaller the circle.

Feature of Connected Papers (3): Circle density represents the year

The density of the circle represents the year of publication of the literature.

The denser the color, the newer the paper; the lighter, the older the paper.

If you want to grasp the trend, it is good to focus on checking new papers.

Feature of Connected Papers (4): Circle distance represents the depth of the relationship

The closer the circles are, the more related the papers are.

First, let’s check the papers that are nearby.

Feature of Connected Papers (5): Can also be Listed and filtered

You can list the papers by pressing “List View” in the upper right.

Highly relevant literature is displayed at the top.

It can also be sorted by year or number of Citations.

Furthermore, with “Filter”, you can also filter by keywords or publication year.

Feature of Connected Papers (6): Previous Research can be investigated

By pressing “Prior works” in the upper right, you can display papers that are frequently cited by papers in the graph.

There is always a “key paper in that area” that everyone cites.

You can avoid overlooking it by using this function.

When a paper is selected, related papers are highlighted (light blue).

Feature of Connected Papers (7): Derivative research can be investigated

By pressing “Deriative works”, you can display derivative research that has been influenced by papers in the graph.

This feature is very useful when trying to understand subsequent research!

“The things I thought were unknown had already been researched.”

You can check if that is the case.

Official Website: Connected papers (https://www.connectedpapers.com/)

Disadvantages of Connected Papers

There are Usage Limits with the Free Plan

With the Free Plan, you are limited to creating graphs up to 5 times per month.

Cannot display related papers based on multiple papers

Connected Papers searches for related papers for one original paper.

It is inconvenient if you want to investigate multiple papers at once.

Connected Papers Pricing Plans

Paid Plan Fees

	Free Plan	Academic Plan
Annual billing	Free	$6/month

The Business Plan is for individuals who use Connected Papers in a commercial context as part of or in connection with for-profit business operations.

With either plan, you can create Unlimited graphs every month, and the features are the same.

Differences between the Free Plan and the Paid Plan

The only difference between the Free Plan and the Paid Plan is the number of graphs that can be created.

With the Free Plan, you can create up to 5 graphs per month.

Free Plan	Paid Plan
Up to 5 graphs per month	Unlimited

First, try the Free Plan, and if you need to create more than 6 graphs, we recommend signing up for the Paid Plan.

By the way, graphs created in the past can be viewed as many times as you like even in the free version.

Official Website: Connected papers (https://www.connectedpapers.com/)

How to get started with Connected Papers

Access the official website.

Press the “Log in” button in the upper right.

Enter your email address or use your Google account to Sign up.

How to upgrade Connected Papers

Click the icon screen in the upper right corner of the screen and press “Upgrade”.

Select a pricing plan.

To use the Paid Plan at the lowest cost as an individual, select the Academic plan with annual billing.

Payment can be made by Credit Card/debit card, PayPal, Alipay, wire transfer, etc.

Since it is automatically renewed, you need to cancel if you want to cancel it.

Similar Tools to Connected Papers

There are four Similar Tools to Connected papers:

AnswerThis

Visualizing related papers is often a stand-alone tool, but it is included as one of the features in the All-in-one tool AnswerThis.

The flow of Literature Search → digging up related papers is completed within the same tool, making it extremely smooth!

See the article below for details!

AnswerThis is particularly good at “paper review”, so please keep that in mind when reading.

Research Rabbit

It visually displays related papers in a graph, similar to Connected Papers.

It is convenient that it also works with Zotero when uploading papers.

In-depth investigation of related papers is also possible.

If you find a paper you are interested in, you can click on it to find out more details and investigate it further.

It displays more papers than Connected Papers, so it is recommended when a deeper investigation is required.

Completely free.

Scite_

Scite_ is a tool that checks citations, classifying whether a citation is supportive, contrasting, or merely a mention.

It color-codes the stance of the cited work relative to the original paper.

This relationship can be represented in a network, similar to Connected papers.

From the diagram, the following information can be read:

Inciteful

Inciteful is also a tool that visually displays related papers, similar to Connected papers.

By uploading a Bibtex file, you can import multiple papers at once.

No account registration is required, which is an advantage for casual use.

Frequently Asked Questions about Connected Papers

When is Connected Papers useful?

It is useful when you want to understand the overall picture of a research field, starting from the original paper.

What makes Connected Papers better than other similar tools?

The features are moderately simple and easy to understand, and it is easy to use intuitively.

It is not too multifunctional and not too simple, and can be said to be an average tool.

Summary of Connected Papers

When writing a paper or starting new research,

You can avoid such a big mistake.

An essential tool for those involved in research.