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Scispace – AI for research. A game changer for both clinicians and researchers.

It is no secret that I love ChatGPT – but it is not the platform I use for finding research articles. Enter Scispace. Powerful. Time saving. Gobsmacking!


Remember that file of journal articles you think you will read (and never do)? SciSpace can help you understand them in minutes.


So what is Scispace?


Scispace is an AI for research platform designed to find an break down academic research into easy to understand insights. Perfect for finding the best evidence with clear links to  original sources.


How it works


What I love about Scispace is that I don’t need to think of a well-structured research question. I just type a few main words and it suggests refined research questions. Recently I typed: “literacy intervention autistic early readers” and it translated my key words into 3 well-formed questions that I can choose from:


Search suggestion dropdown with three literacy questions about autism and early readers on a white background.

Scispace even gives tips on how to improve prompts! It gives a short summary of the top five papers with an extended list of ten below. Love this! Then you can start really to refine the results and ask to: add another 10 papers, delete papers and filter according to year, publication type, or pdf availability. Generally, I filter to limit to papers published in the last 10-15 years and ask for another 10 papers, so I see the 20 most relevant results.


The Goldmine: Custom Columns


Initially Scispace provides 3 columns of information – the paper, the insights and the results. But the power of Scispace is that you can add 20 more columns based on the information you would like, including:

  • Conclusions


  • Summarised Abstract


  • Methods Used


  • Limitations


  • PracticalImplications


  • ResearchGap


  • DependentVariables


  • IndependentVariables


  • PopulationSample


  • Challenges


  • Applications


I often add methods, practical implications and conclusions. You can even create your own columns, like “dose”. Then you can save your search.


Chat with PDF


What about a PDF you have been meaning to read to help better plan intervention?Scispace has all answers with it’s “Chat with PDF” function. To test it out, I uploaded a research article that I wrote myself. The summary was 100% accurate. That is not to say you shouldn’t check. You should check and can easily click on links to read the original text. But it is clear that AI is improving all the time.


To delve further, you can highlight specific areas of the PDF and Scispace will provide definitions and explain difficult paragraph or sentences. You can ask specific questions about the content of the article. I find this particularly useful for statistical analysis (as there is such a huge range of statistical tests!) Scispace gave a great explanation of a Kappa’s Coeffiecient in a way that made total sense - and explained why it mattered:


Light blue slide explaining Cohen’s Kappa with bullets on definition, scale, example, and K=0.72 meaning moderate agreement.

Pricing


The free version is good, but like most free version it has a limited number of clicksper day, so choose wisely. The free version includes;


30 output previews.


Download up to 1000 words


5 bibliography downloads


5 columns in the literature review


Limited chats with PDF, notebooks, summaries etc.


However, I have found the free version great for my daily use. I use the paid version (~AU$32/month) when I have intensive research, and it is excellent. I will not research without it! The power of Scipace allows me to investigate any topic, so I have stopped subscribing to pricey platforms that summarise speech pathology research.


AI for Research: Practical Takeaways


Next time you’re about to Google “aphasia + semantic feature analysis +evidence,” or “childhood apraxia + developmental delay + intervention” open SciSpace instead. Build a table with your preferred information, and you’ll have a mini evidence library at your fingertips.


Bonus Tip


Got an article you have been meaning to read?Upload to the “Chat with PDF” and ask “How does this apply to …?” and see what you think of Scispace!


Until next time,

Megan

from

Speech Pathology Leaning and Supervision Hub - SPLASH


If this saved you even 5 minutes, forward it to a fellow speech pathologist who’d love to make working life easier:




 
 
 

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