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Create a Litmap

Here's how to create a Litmap (a literature map).

Marina Kisley avatar
Written by Marina Kisley
Updated over a week ago

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A Litmap is a visualization of research based on how articles connect via citations and references. Create one to dive into the literature on your topic and understand the scientific landscape.


With a Litmap, you can:

  • Visualize your work

  • Find related articles

  • See how research connects

How to create a Litmap

  1. Go to the Litmaps app

  2. Click the search bar at the top left

  3. Select your starting articles, by either searching or uploading some

  4. Click "Explore Related Articles"

Your Litmap will show your starting articles as dark dots, and relevant, suggested work as darkened dots. Click here to read about how these suggestions are done.

You can grow your Litmap by clicking "More like this". This saves suggested articles to your Map, and helps target your search so Litmaps can find more relevant work for you.

Create a Litmap with your own articles

You can create a Litmap for articles you already have on your topic. Whether that's a set of PDFs, list of titles, or set of saved articles in a reference manager like Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, etc.


To create a Litmap with imported articles:

  1. Go to the Litmaps app

  2. Click "Import" at the top left, and import your articles

  3. Click "Explored Related Articles"

Create a Litmap from a Tag

You can make a Litmap from a Tag. Tags are collection in Litmaps that help you keep your research organized.

To create a Litmap from a Tag:

  1. Open up the Tag

  2. Click "Explore Related Articles" at the top

๐Ÿค” Want to download articles you found in Litmaps?

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