Literature review
Upload the papers you have already collected, compare outline options proposed from them, and get your papers grouped into sections with short and long summaries, a review table, and Word files you can edit.
PDF only, up to 20 MB each · Free: up to 10 PDFs per job · Premium: 10–40 PDFs
Overview
Literature Organizer is a literature review organizer for researchers who already have a stack of relevant PDFs and need a structure before they start writing. You upload the papers, and the tool summarizes each one, identifies shared themes, and proposes several organization options, each a list of section topics. You pick the option that fits your review question. A second step distributes the papers across those sections, drafts section text and a table of study categories, focus, key findings, limitations and references, and lists any file that did not fit. It suits thesis chapters, review articles and coursework where the reading is done but the outline is not. It does not search for new literature or replace your own reading, synthesis and citation checks.
Explore the Literature Organizer tutorialCapabilities
Step 1 reads every uploaded PDF and proposes several organization options. Each option is a different set of section topics drawn from the themes in your collection, listed by title so you can compare structures before you choose. Nothing is fixed until you press Select, so you choose the grouping that matches your research question instead of a generic template.
Once you choose an option, the papers are assigned to the sections of that outline. The Sections view lists articles under every heading with totals for sections, PDFs uploaded and PDFs used. As a literature mapping tool, it maps papers to your outline rather than drawing a citation network, and an Unused Files tab names any upload left out.
Each paper gets a short summary paired with its reference and a separate long summary for closer reading. The Literature Review Summary combines drafted section text with a table of study categories, focus, key findings, limitations and references. Each of these downloads as an editable Word (.docx) file, ready for you to revise and merge into your own draft.
How it works
Collect text-based PDFs on one review topic, each up to 20 MB. The Free plan accepts 1 to 10 PDFs per job and Premium accepts 10 to 40. Image-only scans may produce no summaries, so make sure your papers contain selectable text.
Select Upload & Start Step 1. The tool summarizes each paper, identifies shared themes and returns several organization options. Read the topic titles in each option, then select the one that best reflects the argument your literature review needs to make.
Step 2 distributes the papers, drafts section text and builds the summary table. Check each assignment and summary against the original paper, open Unused Files for anything left out, and download the Word files to edit. Recent jobs stay in the Recent Analysis panel for reopening.
Inputs, outputs & coverage
Literature Organizer works only with the papers you upload. It structures and summarizes that set; it does not search databases or verify citations, and its summaries need checking against each source.
Read our privacy policyPlans & limits
Run the full two-step workflow on a small set of papers, within a limited number of Free jobs each month.
For reviews built on a larger body of reading, each Premium job organizes between 10 and 40 papers.
Frequently asked questions
Practical answers about uploads, outline options, summaries and what to check before you use the results.
Contact our teamOn the Free plan, a job accepts between 1 and 10 PDFs; on Premium, a job accepts between 10 and 40. Each file must be a PDF of 20 MB or less, and you can add files in several batches before you start. The workspace shows a running count and keeps the start button disabled until the number is within your plan's range. Keeping the set to one review topic gives Step 1 shared themes to build its outline options from.
Each option lists the section topics it would use for your papers. Pick the one whose sections match the questions your review has to answer, not simply the one with the most sections, and check that each topic is likely to be supported by several of your papers. Once you select an option, Step 2 runs on that structure and the results keep it. To work from a different grouping, start a new job with the same PDFs.
You do not have to choose: both are produced in the same job. A short summary is a compact overview paired with the paper's reference, useful when you scan a section or plan a paragraph. A long summary is a fuller, separate document for each paper, meant for closer reading. Each set has its own results tab and Word download. Treat both as reading aids and confirm figures, methods and claims in the original paper.
Yes to both. The Downloads menu offers Distribution_of_Articles.docx, Table.docx with the review summary and categories table, Short_Summaries.docx, and a long-summary file for each article. Because they are Word files, you can rename sections, move papers and rewrite text. Before you use anything, check each summary against its paper, format references in your required citation style, and write the final synthesis yourself.
Literature Organizer
Give the research paper organizer the PDFs you already have, compare the proposed outlines, and start writing from a structure you chose and checked.