Start with just the main finding and title, then choose what you want to see next
We simplified the results page in Elicit so that you see the paper title and its main finding to start. You can add additional columns of information when you need them.
Here was my process exploring research on infant sleep training -
1. Review Main findings and Paper titles to remove irrelevant papers.
2. Add Paper type to see if there are enough papers to filter for ones that are more evidence-based.
3. Think about what other information I need to figure out which papers I want to dig into. "How old are the children?" helped me distinguish between papers studying newborns vs. older children or mothers.
4. Double check publication date to make sure I'm not missing more recent work. Check citation count to make sure I don't miss a well-known paper.
5. Start with the systematic reviews and metaanalyses first.
I hope adding one column at a time gives you space to stop and think more about what you need to know next, rather than being forced to react to a deluge of information. I find it helpful to start broad, then systematically zoom in on the rabbit hole I want to jump in.
Eventually, we'd like to let you automate some of these steps so that, for a given question, we can guess the sequence you want to follow.
