Elicit

What Elicit does

Elicit is built for structured academic work rather than conversational answers. You ask a research question and it finds relevant papers, then extracts specified fields from each one into a table: sample size, population, methodology, outcomes, limitations and anything else you define. That table is the core of the product, because it turns screening dozens of papers into a comparison you can scan. It also supports systematic review workflows with screening criteria, summarises findings across papers, and exports to reference managers and spreadsheets. It suits researchers, evidence synthesis teams, and anyone conducting a literature review properly. The limitations are coverage and verification: it draws on open academic metadata and abstracts, so paywalled full texts may be partially handled, extraction from methodology sections is occasionally wrong, and every extracted value needs checking against the paper before it enters published work.

How to use it

Sign up at elicit.com; a free tier allows a limited number of searches and extractions per month, with paid plans for heavier review work. Phrase your question as a research question rather than keywords, since the search operates on meaning. When results appear, do not read the summary first: add columns for the specific attributes you care about, let it extract those across the papers, then scan the table. That is the workflow the tool exists for. Use the screening features to include or exclude papers against stated criteria so your process is reproducible and documentable. Upload your own PDFs when you already have a corpus. Export to a spreadsheet or reference manager for the writing stage. Two practical points: always open the source paper to verify any extracted number before citing it, and be explicit in your method section about the tool's role, since journals increasingly expect that disclosure.

Best for

• literature reviews
• paper screening
• data extraction tables
• evidence synthesis
• research proposals

Strengths and limitations