Draft a section

When you know what a section should say but face a blank page, Papero can write a first draft of it from the section's prompt. You read the draft before anything goes into your document, and you decide whether to keep it. Treat it as a starting point: check its claims and make the argument your own.

Draft a section

1. On a wider screen, open the prompts panel on the left. If it is closed, press Show prompts panel.
2. Put your cursor in the section you want to draft. Its box opens in the panel under Section prompts.
3. In the box, type what the section should cover. A few short lines are enough: the points to make, the order, the sources or data to mention.
4. Press Generate draft. The button shows Drafting… while Papero writes.
5. A card with the draft opens in the section itself, headed Drafting this section… and then Draft for this section.
6. Read the draft. Press Add to document to keep it, or Discard to drop it.

Papero saves your document before it drafts, because it drafts from the saved section prompt. If a section has no prompt, Papero drafts from its heading and the rest of the outline.

What Papero uses

To keep the draft consistent with the rest of your paper, Papero reads:

• the document title and the document prompt;
• the part of your outline around the section;
• the section's heading and its prompt;
• the text before the section;
• any text the section already has.

A draft is a few paragraphs of plain text, in your document's language. If the section already has text, the draft carries on from where it ends rather than repeating it. If the section is a Heading 2 with subsections under it, Papero writes only a short introduction that leads into the subsections, because each subsection has its own prompt and draft.

Add, discard or try again

While Papero writes, the card shows the draft as it arrives and a Stop button. When it is done:

• Add to document puts the draft into the section. In a section with no text yet, it replaces the empty lines. In a section that has text, it goes at the end. You can undo it in one step.
• Discard drops the draft.
• If something went wrong, the card says what and offers Try again.

If a draft stopped before the end, the card says it may finish mid-sentence. You can still add it.

You can have one draft open at a time. To draft another section, add or discard the open draft first. If you leave the page with a draft you have not added, Papero asks before you go.

If the section changes while a draft is open

If you delete the section's heading while a finished draft is open, the card hides, and the prompts panel says the draft's section was removed. Undo brings the heading and the card back. If you no longer want the section, press Copy draft in the panel to copy the text so you can paste it elsewhere, or Discard draft to drop it.

Drafts with citations

On Plus, a draft can cite your own sources and papers Papero finds for the section, following the section's Sources setting in the prompts panel (Auto, Off or Selected). The citations appear in the card as in-text citations, and they go into your document with the draft. See Autocomplete for how the Sources setting works.

On Free, once you have a PDF in your library that is ready, a draft can cite from your own PDFs. See Upload PDFs.

Write better prompts

The draft can only be as focused as the prompt. A few tips:

• Name the claim the section makes, not just its topic.
• List the points in the order you want them.
• Mention the methods, results or sources it should cover.
• Say what to leave out, such as "no interpretation yet" for a Results section.

The prompts that come with Standard sections are a good model. The one for Results reads: "The main findings, in the order of your questions", "The tables or figures that show them" and "Findings only, no interpretation yet". See Outlines and headings.

Your allowance

A draft counts against your plan's AI allowance once, when you add it or copy it. If Papero could not draft the section, it says so and the attempt does not count. The panel shows how many drafts you have left under Generate draft, and Usage in the account menu shows all your allowances. To compare the plans, see pricing.

Drafting needs a confirmed email address. See Create your account.

To draft a whole literature review in the background instead of one section at a time, see Workflows.