Search and add academic papers

Use this guide to find an academic paper by topic, DOI, arXiv ID, or title and add it to an Atlas project.

Before you start

Paper search works best when you have a precise identifier. Broad topic searches return more results but require more review before you add anything. A focused project with a few highly relevant papers is easier to work with than a large project with loosely related material.

Steps

1. Open the Atlas project where the paper belongs.
2. Open the add-source panel.
3. Enter the most specific identifier you have.
4. Review the result before adding it.
5. Select the correct paper and add it to the project.
6. Wait for processing to finish before using chat, summaries, or maps.

Choose the right search input

If you only have a topic, be specific. "Transformer interpretability sparse autoencoders" finds more useful results than "AI."

Review before adding

Before adding a paper, check:

• The title and authors match what you intended.
• The year and venue are correct.
• The abstract confirms relevance.
• Full text is available, not just metadata.

Confirm the import

Open the paper from the source list after processing. Confirm the content is readable and the paper is the one you intended to add.

If Atlas retrieved metadata but not usable full text, upload a PDF copy you have permission to use.

Troubleshooting

Related topics

• Source types
• Import a PDF into Atlas