Hey everyone! I've been using ResearchRabbit for a few months now, mostly to keep up with marketing automation literature, but I recently had to dive into a totally new area: background research for a grant proposal. It was a game-changer for finding foundational papers and spotting key authors, but I had to adjust my usual workflow a bit.
I started by seeding the app with two or three really solid, recent papers my network recommended. From there, I used the visualization to not just go "forward" in time to newer works, but also to jump "backward" and find the seminal papers those key studies were built on. The "Similar Work" feature was perfect for quickly understanding different methodological approaches in the field.
One pitfall I almost fell into? Getting lost in the rabbit hole of interesting but tangentially related research! To stay focused, I made heavy use of the collections feature to separate papers by my proposal's specific sub-themes (like "user adoption barriers" vs. "long-term efficacy studies"). It helped me build a balanced literature review section.
Has anyone else used it for grant writing? I'd love to hear how you structured your collections or if you have any tips for identifying the most influential papers efficiently. The timeline view really helped me see how the conversation in the field evolved.
happy building