Related Work Finder: What Should You Read Next?
After finishing a paper, use AI to identify related work, chase key citations, and build a prioritized reading list — so every paper leads to the next one that matters.
The Two-Prompt Workflow for Finding Related Work
You’ve finished a research paper. Now what? Most people close the PDF and move on. But every good paper connects to a web of related work — foundational studies, competing findings, methodological alternatives, and recent extensions. Knowing what to read next is the difference between isolated knowledge and genuine expertise.
This guide gives you a two-prompt workflow to build a prioritized reading list from any paper you finish.
Step 1: Map the Paper’s Position (PR040)
Start with the Academic Paper Navigator. Even after reading a paper, running PR040 on the abstract helps you articulate where the paper fits in its field. It identifies the research question, the gap it claims to fill, and the conversation it’s joining.
This context is essential before hunting for related work. You need to know what the paper is responding to before you can find what responds to it.
Step 2: Connect to the Bigger Picture (PR027)
Now run the “So What” Connector prompt on the paper’s key findings or conclusion. This prompt maps four dimensions:
The larger debate: What broader academic conversation is this paper part of? What’s the unresolved question that makes this research matter?
Connections to what you know: How does this paper relate to topics you’re already familiar with? This bridges new knowledge to existing understanding.
Real-world relevance: What situations, decisions, or problems does this paper help you understand better?
What to read next: AI will suggest directions for further reading — sometimes specific papers, sometimes research areas to explore.
After running PR027, ask a follow-up: “Categorize your reading suggestions as: (1) foundational works I should have read first, (2) methodological alternatives to this approach, (3) papers with competing findings, and (4) recent extensions of this work.” This gives you a structured reading list.
Citation Chasing: The Manual Complement
AI can suggest directions, but citation chasing gives you concrete papers. There are two directions:
Backward citation chasing — Look at what this paper cites. Which references appear repeatedly? Which are described as foundational? These are the papers that shaped the current study.
Forward citation chasing — Use Google Scholar’s “Cited by” feature to find papers that cite the one you just read. These represent the paper’s impact — how other researchers have built on, challenged, or applied the findings.
Combine AI’s suggestions with manual citation chasing for the most complete picture of the research landscape.
You read a paper on how sleep quality affects cognitive performance. Running PR027 reveals:
Larger debate: The sleep research community is split on whether quality or duration matters more.
Connections: This relates to circadian rhythm research you’ve read before.
Real-world relevance: Shift workers, new parents, jet lag recovery strategies.
Reading suggestions: The Walker lab’s work on sleep stages, the conflicting Dinges study on cumulative sleep debt, recent meta-analyses on sleep interventions.
Prioritizing Your Reading List
You’ll generate more suggestions than you can read. Prioritize by:
Papers cited by multiple sources — If the same paper keeps appearing in reference lists, it’s probably foundational.
Papers that challenge the findings — These sharpen your understanding by showing where the debate lies.
Recent publications — Forward citations from the last 2-3 years show where the field is moving.
Papers closest to your specific question — Not all related work is equally relevant to your purposes.
AI can suggest topics and directions, but it may hallucinate specific paper titles or author names. Always verify AI’s reading suggestions against actual databases (Google Scholar, PubMed, Semantic Scholar) before adding them to your list.
Complete Your Research Reading Stack
The Related Work Finder is the final step in your paper analysis workflow. Use it with:
Paper Map Prompt — Start here: navigate the paper before diving in
Methods Decoder — Understand what the study did
Limitations & Assumptions — Evaluate how much to trust the findings
Frequently Asked Questions
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