With AI, Can Tackling Research Papers Turn from a Chore into an Adventure?

Research papers hard to understand? This isn’t just a problem for academic novices. Even seasoned researchers, sometimes when conducting interdisciplinary research across other fields, also encounter tough nuts to crack.

The Beginning

I don’t know if you still remember, but back in 2019, I wrote an article titled “What to Do When You Can’t Understand a Research Paper,” which received over 2,700 likes and numerous comments on Zhihu.

The reason that article was so popular was because it addressed a major pain point for many friends in academia (especially graduate students just starting out) — stubbornly wrestling with incomprehensible papers.

Sticking to traditional methods and battling through incomprehensible papers can leave you feeling less and less accomplished, and even increasingly frustrated. Nowadays, academic resources are so abundant; not using these resources is rather like ‘leaving a spacious house unoccupied…