How it works
One run each morning, every reason kept.
Once a day the run reads everything new in the field. By breakfast the day's picks are ready, each with the reasons for its place. Here's what happens, in order.
-
Read 05:30 UTC
It collects the latest listings from the preprint feed: every new paper in the field's categories, about five hundred on a typical weekday.
-
Sort
Each paper goes to one of the field's twelve areas, by its listed categories and the wording of its title and abstract.
-
Notice
Each area's count is compared with its usual pace over the past month. An area running well above its usual share is active today; that's what lights up in the Field view.
-
Weigh
A first pass scores every paper on how well it fits your goals, how busy its area is, and whether code was released. The strongest three hundred or so, plus a few from every area, are then scored in full, adding the authors' track record where a scholarly metadata service has it.
If you've turned it on, a language model you choose also grades the papers against rubrics you write.
-
Pick
The strongest few in each area make the shortlist, plus extra matches for each goal: about forty papers. The highest-scoring one takes the stage.
-
Explain
Every paper keeps the reasons for its place, including the ones left out: its first-pass rank, the goal it served, the area it competed in. Click any paper in the demo's map to read them.
-
Then it's yours
Hold up to seven papers in working memory while you read; anything you don't keep fades over a week. Move the keepers to your library. Switch a goal off and the day re-ranks in your browser.
What it doesn't do
- It doesn't learn from your clicks. The ranking depends on the day's papers and your goals, nothing else.
- It doesn't hide its arithmetic. The scores and reasons it used are shown on every paper.
- It doesn't write the papers for you. Each summary line is a sentence from the authors' abstract, or the one-line summary a scholarly metadata service publishes.
Four views, one day
The same picks and reasons, drawn four ways: Today, a stage for the top pick; Explore, a chart of everything that arrived; Field, the areas that are unusually busy; and Focus, a triage display for heavy days.
Why a stage
The Today view borrows a long-standing picture of attention: many specialists work in parallel, they compete for one stage, and whatever wins is shared with all of them. Here the specialists are the areas, your goals do the directing, and the winner is the paper you see first.