How to organize research papers for reading

Question

I recently read somewhere that a paper is a small part of a long on-going conversation. I found this description aptly.To comprehend the latest paper, I frequently find it necessary to grasp the context provided by its citations. All pertinent papers collectively shape a Directed Acyclic Graph.Is there a tool available that would enable me to organize papers in a DAG, allowing me to formulate a structured reading plan? Currently, my PDFs are scattered across different locations, and I essentially have to rely on memory to recall the dependencies between papers.

carlorolland56 · Accepted Answer

You could use a combination of tools to make the whole process easier. I recommend tools like SciSpace and Litmaps for literature review and segregation of relevant papers. Try DAGitty online for organizing papers/studies in DAG. Here's another GPT chat-bot tailored for researchers: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-NgAcklHd8-researchgpt-official

tea-coffee · Answer

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not aware of a tool that can allow you to organize papers in such a way. There might be, not sure. Also, if I understood you correctly, the tool would work in a way that would enable you to visualize the historical narrative leading to the latest paper. What would be really interesting, if not only could you manually organize papers in such a way, but have the software automate this process to delineate the most relevant papers.