How To Use Scite

Scite is an AI-powered research assistant designed to help academics, students, and professionals evaluate and understand scholarly articles. Using its signature Smart Citations, Scite categorizes how other authors cite a paper—whether they support, contrast, or simply mention it—making literature reviews and credibility checks faster and more insightful.

We feature Scite in our AI Learning Tools collection alongside other research aids like AskYourPDF, Scholarcy, and Consensus for comprehensive academic workflows.

What Is Scite?

Scite is an advanced citation analysis platform that has processed over 1 billion citation statements extracted from more than 200 million articles, books, preprints, and datasets. It allows users to:

• Discover how and why papers are cited

• Track citation contexts with classification (supporting/contrasting/mentioning)

• Ask AI research questions via Scite Assistant

• Organize papers into custom dashboards, track citation alerts, and integrate with tools like Zotero

Official Website: https://scite.ai

🧪 AI Science & Research Tools

Key Features of Scite

Smart Citation Context
Scite labels citations based on whether they support or dispute a paper’s findings. It’s like having context-aware footnotes—helping you evaluate research credibility quickly. A researcher on Reddit noted:

“The Smart Citations feature is a total game changer… saves me so much time and effort” 

AI Research Assistant
Scite Assistant leverages its citation database to answer complex questions with real citations—reducing the risk of hallucinated responses. Another user explained:

“The AI Assistant answers my research questions with proper references… like having a personal research assistant” 

Custom Dashboards & Alerts
Create topic-specific collections and get notified when your tracked papers gain new supporting or contradicting citations.

Browser Extensions & Zotero Integration
Scite’s extensions overlay citation context directly on Google Scholar or PubMed pages, while the Zotero plugin simplifies reference management .

Reference Check & Impact Analysis
Upload your manuscript to see if cited sources are supported, contradicted, or retracted in other literature—a powerful credibility safeguard .

How To Use Scite

Step 1: Visit the Official Site
Head to https://scite.ai and sign up for a free 7‑day trial or choose a Personal plan starting at $12–20/month.

Step 2: Search Academic Papers
Use keyword, DOI, title, or author search. Scite returns results showing citation counts and contextual insights.

Step 3: Analyze Smart Citations
Open any paper to view how it's cited—whether supportive, critical, or neutral—with confidence scores and context.

Step 4: Use Scite Assistant
Ask questions like “What is the impact of this study?” and receive concise, sourced summaries.

Step 5: Create Dashboards & Alerts
Group related articles into Collections. Enable alerts to monitor new citations of interest.

Step 6: Add Browser Extension & Reference Manager Integration
Install Scite’s badge to view citation context in search results. Use the Zotero plugin to streamline citations in your research.

Who Should Use Scite?

Students & Academics
Speed up literature reviews and assess evidence credibility at a glance.

Researchers & Lab Leads
Monitor how your work is being cited—spot contradictions, support, or misinterpretations.

Journalists & Policy Analysts
Back up claims with citations that show how studies are received in the academic community.

Grant Writers & Evaluators
Ensure applications reference well-supported literature using Smart Citations.

Developers & Librarians
Leverage Scite’s API and dashboards for integration in institutional research repositories.

Why Scite Stands Out

• Context-rich citation insights

• AI summarization backed by real references

• Easy organizational tools for managing research

• In-browser and reference manager integrations

• Alerts for citation trends and retractions

One Reddit user summarized it well:

“Scite AI has made my research work more efficient… citation context feature cuts my research time significantly” 

Final Thoughts

Scite is a standout AI research tool—offering context-aware citation analysis, AI-guided literature understanding, and intuitive organizational features. It enhances research accuracy, credibility, and speed—especially for academics, professionals, and knowledge workers.

Give it a try via the official Scite website, and explore how it complements tools like AskYourPDF, Scholarcy, or Consensus for a fully AI-powered research workflow.