ResearchRabbit is a free research discovery tool. You start with papers you already know, and it shows you how the research around them connects, so you can find what's foundational, what's new, and what you might have missed.
What is the citation network?
Every paper cites earlier work in its references, and is cited in turn by the papers that come after it. Together, these links connect all published research into one large citation network.
Imagine each dot in the image below is a paper, and lines show how each one cites the others. Paper A cites paper B, and paper B cites many other papers in turn. All published work is connected in this way, in a large interconnected citation network.
Following references backward takes you to the work a paper builds on, often the foundational studies in a field.
Following citations forward takes you to newer work that builds on it, showing where the field is heading.
Why it matters
Keyword searches only find papers that use the words you typed. But researchers describe the same idea in different ways, and fields change their vocabulary over time. Citations connect papers working on the same problem, whatever words they use.
Following the citation network helps you:
find the key papers that everything else builds on
find recent work that doesn't have many citations yet
check your coverage, so you can be confident you've seen the main work on your topic
Doing this by hand is slow. One paper can have dozens of references and hundreds of citations, and each of those leads to more.
How ResearchRabbit uses it
ResearchRabbit builds your citation network from the Seeds you choose. It looks at the papers that cite your Seeds, the papers your Seeds cite, and the papers often cited alongside them, then recommends the ones most closely connected. That helps you:
Trace the origins of ideas (foundational work).
See how research has evolved over time (emerging work).
Spot clusters of related studies.
Quickly identify influential papers, and newer ones that don't have many citations yet.
Want the technical detail? See How does ResearchRabbit work?
Ready to try it? Follow How to use ResearchRabbit: a step-by-step guide.
Common questions
How is ResearchRabbit different from a keyword search, like Google Scholar?
A keyword search finds papers that use the words you typed. ResearchRabbit starts from papers you already know and follows their citations, so it finds related work even when it uses different words.
Where does ResearchRabbit get its papers from?
ResearchRabbit searches a large database of academic papers and the citation links between them. Read more in The ResearchRabbit Database.
Does ResearchRabbit use AI?
ResearchRabbit’s recommendations come from the citation network, the links between papers. To see exactly where we do and don’t use AI, read How ResearchRabbit uses AI, and where we don’t.
Can ResearchRabbit replace my library database searches?
It works best alongside them. Use your library databases for structured searches, and ResearchRabbit to follow the citations and find what keywords miss. See Using ResearchRabbit alongside library databases.
Why isn’t a paper I know about showing up?
Recommendations come from the papers connected to your Seeds. If a paper isn’t closely connected to them yet, for example because it’s very new and has few citations, try adding it as a Seed yourself.