Elicit for Methods Literature Scans

1. Go to elicit.com and sign up
2. Look for a search box on the main workspace and start your scan there
3. Take a minute to look at the Library section, where saved sources accumulate over time

What you should see: A clean search interface with a prompt asking what you want to find out, and a sidebar or menu pointing to search, reports, and your library.

Elicit works best with a focused question, not a topic name.

1. Write your question the way you would explain it to a colleague, including the comparison you care about
2. Avoid vague nouns. Name the specific methods being compared
3. Enter the question into the search box

What you should see: A results list of papers ranked by relevance to your question's meaning, not just matching words. Troubleshooting: If the first results feel off-target, narrow the question further. A comparison framed as "A versus B for situation C" tends to return more usable results than a single broad term.

1. From the results list, select the papers that look genuinely relevant, rather than accepting the full list
2. Look for an option to extract or add columns, where you can specify what to pull from each paper (method used, sample size, outcome, effect size)
3. Let the extraction run and review the resulting table

What you should see: A table with one row per paper and one column per field you asked for, each cell showing the extracted value with a link back to where it came from in the source paper. Troubleshooting: If a cell looks wrong or vague, click through to the source. Extraction quality varies by how clearly the paper reports that field.

Do not treat the extracted table as the final word.

1. Open the source paper (or its abstract, at minimum) for any row you plan to reference in a methods paragraph or a response to reviewers
2. Confirm the extracted method, sample size, or outcome matches what the paper actually says
3. Note the full citation details from the source itself, not from Elicit's summary alone

What you should see: A confirmed match between what the table says and what the paper says, with a citation you could defend if someone asked you to pull the original.

1. Add the papers you verified and plan to cite to your Library
2. Tag or group them by the project or SAP they support
3. Come back to the same Library entry next time a related question comes up, rather than starting from zero

What you should see: A running collection of verified sources, organized well enough that a future search on a related topic starts from something instead of nothing.