Find papers

Papero searches over 250 million scholarly papers through OpenAlex, an open catalogue of scholarly works. You can search from Cite while you write, or from the Find papers page to gather papers before you write. Both use the same search, the same result cards and the same filters.

Search from Cite

1. Put your cursor where the citation goes and open Cite. See Cite as you write.
2. In the Search tab, type a few words about your topic and press Enter or Search.
3. Press Cite on the paper you want, or Save to keep it in your library for later.

Papero searches only when you press Enter or Search, not as you type. With the box empty, Find papers for this sentence searches for the sentence you are writing, and Enter in the empty box does the same.

While the box is empty, Cite can also offer searches to start from:

• Suggested from your document: searches made from your document's title and its Heading 2 and Heading 3 texts. Headings such as Introduction or Methods are left out, because they find nothing about your topic. Nothing is sent until you pick one.
• Recent searches: what you searched for last. Clear empties the list.

Click a suggestion to run it.

Use the Find papers page

1. In the sidebar, press Find papers.
2. Type your topic and press Search. Before your first search, the page offers a few examples under Try one of these., or your recent searches once you have some.
3. Press Save to library on each paper you want.

A saved paper shows Saved, and Add to collection puts it in one of your collections. If you have none yet, the menu says Create collections in your Library first.

When a result has a free PDF, Save with PDF saves the paper and fetches the PDF into your library. See Get a free PDF.

What a result shows

Each result card shows:

• the type, such as Article or Book, and how often the paper has been cited (Cited by and a number);
• Retracted, Preprint or Open access when that applies;
• the title, the authors, and the journal and year;
• a Journal impact line when OpenAlex has that figure for the journal. See Journal impact filter;
• the abstract when there is one, with See more to read it all.

View paper opens the paper's page, at doi.org when it has a DOI. Open PDF opens a free PDF when there is one.

Sort and filter the results

• Sort results: Relevance, Most recent, Oldest or Most cited.
• Published from: type a year to leave out older papers. Empty means Any year.
• Cited by: Any, 5+, 20+ or 50+ citations.
• Journal impact: hides results from journals under a minimum. See Journal impact filter.
• Preprints: untick it to leave preprints out. Preprints have not been peer reviewed.

In Cite, the filters sit behind the Filters button, which shows how many are on. On the Find papers page they sit in one row above the results. Changing the sort or a filter runs the search on screen again, except Journal impact, which only hides results.

Set the filters for a document

Each document has its own starting filters. Open Document options (the three dots at the top right) and choose Citation preferences…. The Papers to suggest dialog sets:

• Published from: Any year, Last 5 years, Last 10 years or From year;
• Cited by: the minimum number of citations;
• Preprints: whether to include them.

Press Save. These settings apply to Cite's search in this document and, on Plus, to the papers AI suggestions may cite. Your own sources are used as they are. The Find papers page has no document, so it starts from the default settings.

Search limits

Each search counts toward your plan's paper search allowance. Usage in the account menu shows how many you have used and when they reset. Every plan, Plus included, also has a daily paper search limit, which resets at midnight UTC and is not shown in Usage. When you reach either one, a message above the results says so, and Papero tells you when searches come back. At the daily limit, the message starts You have reached today’s paper search limit. Lookups by DOI, PMID, arXiv ID or ISBN and custom citations still work. See Your AI allowance, Add a source by identifier and Custom citations.

Searching for papers needs a confirmed email address. Until then you can still paste a DOI or add a source by hand. See Create your account. To compare the plans, see pricing.

Next: add a source by its identifier.