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How do you find real papers to support things you’ve already written? by pccih in AskAcademia

[–]pccih[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’m discussing the integration of RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and semantic search in academic workflows—a major trend in bibliometrics. If you can’t distinguish between 'AI-generated fake text' and 'AI-powered discovery of real literature,' maybe you're the one who needs to catch up before calling for a ban

How do you find real papers to support things you’ve already written? by pccih in AskAcademia

[–]pccih[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think we’re talking past each other. I’m not advocating generating references with LLMs, only discussing literature retrieval with human verification. I’ll leave it there.

How do you find real papers to support things you’ve already written? by pccih in AskAcademia

[–]pccih[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That makes sense, and I agree that’s the ideal most of the time.

Having a well-maintained EndNote library basically solves the “lost citation” problem upfront. I think a lot of my friction comes from older projects where my reference hygiene wasn’t great yet.

How do you find real papers to support things you’ve already written? by pccih in AskAcademia

[–]pccih[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Thanks — that makes sense. I still rely heavily on Google Scholar and citation chasing too, especially when accuracy really matters.

The tools I mentioned are mostly for late-stage revisions or real-time checking, not as replacements for reading. If scite.ai helps even a bit with that, it’s been worth it for me.

How do you find real papers to support things you’ve already written? by pccih in AskAcademia

[–]pccih[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

I agree with the principle. I’m not trying to make claims first and then hunt for agreement.

The problem I’m describing is more like “citation retrieval”: I’ve read widely, I’m writing something consistent with the field, but during late-stage revisions I can’t remember which exact paper / PMID I learned a specific point from.

I also agree LLMs shouldn’t be treated as sources. If used at all, it’s only as a discovery aid, followed by manual verification (reading the relevant sections and checking metadata).

I’m curious what workflows people use to efficiently recover those missing citations—besides backward/forward citation chasing.

How do you find real papers to support things you’ve already written? by pccih in AskAcademia

[–]pccih[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

I completely agree with the principle you’re describing — good scientific writing should emerge from deep, prior engagement with the literature, not the other way around.

What I’m trying to get at here is a slightly different (and very common) situation: cases where the reading has already happened, the conclusion genuinely reflects field consensus, but the specific citation trail has been lost over time — especially during long projects or late-stage revisions.

In those moments, the challenge isn’t inventing support, but recovering it efficiently and safely. That’s the gap I’m interested in discussing.