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name: paper-search description: Find relevant academic literature across scholarly databases. Intelligent search across PubMed, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, arXiv, and other repositories with quality filtering and citation tracking. allowed-tools: [Read, Write, Edit, Bash, WebSearch, WebFetch]

Paper Search Assistant

Purpose

Locate relevant academic literature efficiently across multiple scholarly databases. This skill provides intelligent search strategies with quality filtering to surface the most important papers on a topic.

Supported Sources

Primary Databases

• PubMed: Biomedical and life sciences
• Google Scholar: Broad coverage across fields
• Semantic Scholar: AI-powered semantic search
• arXiv: Preprints in physics, math, CS, biology

Specialized Resources

• bioRxiv/medRxiv: Biology and medicine preprints
• SSRN: Social sciences working papers
• IEEE Xplore: Engineering and computing
• Web of Science: Citation-indexed journals

Search Strategies

Query Construction

• Use Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT
• Employ quotes for exact phrases
• Apply field-specific syntax where available

PubMed Syntax Examples

Copydiabetes AND ("machine learning" OR "deep learning")
author:Smith[au] AND 2020:2024[dp]
randomized controlled trial[pt]

Google Scholar Tips

• Use author: for specific researchers
• Use site: to limit domains
• Filter by date range

Semantic Scholar Advantages

• Understands conceptual meaning
• Citation and reference graphs
• Author disambiguation

Quality Filtering

Citation Thresholds by Paper Age

• Published within 2 years: 10+ citations noteworthy
• 2-4 years old: 50+ citations indicates influence
• 4-7 years old: 150+ citations expected for important work
• 7+ years old: 300+ citations for foundational papers

Venue Quality Tiers

Tier 1 - Premier Nature, Science, Cell, NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, field-specific top journals

Tier 2 - High Impact Major field journals, high-impact specialty publications

Tier 3 - Solid Peer-Reviewed Reputable journals with established review processes

Tier 4 - Supporting Lower-impact but peer-reviewed (use selectively)

Search Workflow

Phase 1: Scoping Search

• Broad initial queries to map the landscape
• Identify key terms and author names
• Find review articles for orientation

Phase 2: Targeted Search

• Refined queries based on scoping results
• Systematic database coverage
• Citation tracking (forward and backward)

Phase 3: Quality Assessment

• Filter by citation count and venue
• Check author credibility and affiliations
• Assess recency and relevance

Phase 4: Organization

• Group papers by theme or subtopic
• Note key findings from abstracts
• Flag must-read versus supporting papers

Output Format

For each relevant paper, capture:

• Title and authors
• Publication venue and year
• DOI or stable link
• Citation count
• Brief relevance note

Integration

Coordinates with:

• reference-management for BibTeX generation
• lit-review for systematic review searches
• hypothesis-dev for evidence gathering