Literature review software
Every paper you read, in one defensible pile.
A literature review, from the first search to the finished evidence table. For teams running a systematic review that has to be reproducible, and for students running a thesis search on the same machinery.
Six stages, in order
You do not have to use them all. A thesis project skips reconciliation and the PRISMA diagram entirely, and the app hides what your project kind does not need rather than offering it and then refusing.
Step 01
Ask
Write the questions. Everything after is ranked against them.
Step 02
Find
Five databases at once, duplicates merged before you see them.
Step 03
Screen
Include or exclude, with a reason. Keyboard-driven.
Step 04
Read
Highlight and annotate. Quotes stay anchored to the passage.
Step 05
Extract
The same questions of every paper, so the answers can be compared.
Step 06
Report
Evidence table and PRISMA diagram, from decisions you already made.
Shaped by Researchers
Feedback & Contributions
Recognizing the beta testers, methodology advisors, and developers who have contributed ideas and feedback to upgrade porcupineResearch.
Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Hossain
Associate Professor · BRAC University
"Advised to add the workflow pipeline and to make the workflow simple for the end user."
What it will not do
- It does not decide anything. There is no automatic screening and no relevance model picking papers for you — every decision is a person's, recorded under their name.
- It does not read PDFs for you. The reader works on the abstract; there is no file upload yet.
- It does not write your review. The evidence table and the diagram are outputs you take somewhere else.
- It is not a reference manager. It will take your BibTeX; it will not replace Zotero while you cite.
The longer list has the reasoning behind each one, and what is planned instead.