For Higher Ed Faculty / Adjunct Professors ·
What you'll accomplish
The discovery phase of a literature review typically takes 8–10 hours of reading abstracts one by one. Elicit cuts that to 2–3 hours by searching academic databases and extracting summaries, methods, and findings automatically. Instead of 40 abstracts, you get a structured table showing what each paper says about your research question.
What you'll need
Go to elicit.com in your browser. Click Sign Up in the top right. Use your university email or a personal email — either works. Verify your email when prompted.
What you should see: The Elicit dashboard with a large search bar labeled "What is your research question?" Troubleshooting: If you don't receive the verification email, check your spam folder or try a different email address.
Click in the main search bar and type your research question in plain language. Elicit works best with specific, answerable questions rather than broad topics.
Do this: "What effects do active learning pedagogies have on STEM retention in undergraduate courses?" Not this: "active learning STEM"
After typing, click Find Papers.
What you should see: A results table appears with papers listed as rows. Columns show: Paper title, Year, Authors, Abstract summary, and 2–3 extracted data points.
The default columns show basic summaries, but Elicit can extract specific information. Click + Add column above the results table. Type what you want to know, such as:
Elicit uses AI to extract these from each paper automatically.
What you should see: New columns populate with extracted values. Some cells will say "Not reported" — that's accurate, not an error. Troubleshooting: If an extraction looks wrong, click the cell to see the original text it pulled from. Elicit shows you the source passage.
Use the filters on the left sidebar to narrow by: year (e.g., 2015–present), study type (empirical only), citation count (highly cited papers first). Sort by "Most relevant" to see papers Elicit rates as most on-topic.
Look for papers where multiple columns have strong, relevant answers — these are your "core" papers worth reading in full. Papers with many "Not reported" cells are likely less central to your question.
Click Export in the top right. Choose CSV for import into Excel/Sheets, or BibTeX for import into Zotero or Mendeley. The CSV includes all your extracted columns.
What you should see: A file downloads with each paper as a row and your extraction columns as headers.
Import the CSV into a spreadsheet. Sort by your key column (e.g., "Key finding"). Identify 5–8 papers with the strongest, most relevant findings — read these in full. Skim the rest for anything the extraction missed. Always verify citations — Elicit occasionally misattributes a finding; check the original paper for critical claims.