Connected Papers
Summary
Enter one paper and get a visual graph of the work around it — prior art, derivatives, and adjacent research.
Description
Connected Papers builds a similarity graph around a single seed paper. Unlike a citation list, the graph is arranged by co-citation and bibliographic coupling, so papers cluster by topic even when they never cite each other directly.
Reading the graph
- Node size reflects citation count, so influential work is visually obvious
- Node colour encodes publication year, making the timeline of an idea legible at a glance
- Edges and proximity reflect similarity, so clusters correspond to sub-topics
- Prior works lists the foundational papers the cluster builds on
- Derivative works lists the reviews and follow-ups that came after
Why it is useful
Starting a literature review from one good paper is the common case, and the two questions that follow are "what came before this" and "what has happened since." Connected Papers answers both in one view, and the visual layout makes gaps in your reading apparent in a way a list never does.
Free for a limited number of graphs per month, with an inexpensive subscription for unlimited use and academic and institutional plans available.
Reviews
Similar App Suggestions
Elicit
AI for systematic literature review — search 125 million papers, extract data into tables, and screen at scale.
SciSpace
An AI research assistant over 280 million papers — chat with PDFs, run literature reviews, and decode dense text.
OpenEvidence
A clinical answer engine for doctors, grounded in peer-reviewed medical literature with citations on every claim.
Undermind
A deep-search research assistant that reads full papers, not abstracts, to find work others miss.
ResearchRabbit
Citation-graph exploration for literature reviews — start from one paper and map the field around it visually.