What Compare does
Compare puts papers in rows and your questions in columns. Each cell holds a short answer, the sentence from the paper it rests on, and that sentence's page, so you can read every answer where it stands. It is a reading aid: Scholar's answers have no copy button and nothing from a comparison goes into your drafts. The writing stays yours.
Start a comparison
There are three ways in:
- From a selection. In the Library, select two or more papers and choose Compare in the bar that appears.
- From a collection. In the Collections view, choose Compare next to a collection that holds two or more papers. The Comparisons page also lists your collections under Start from a collection.
- From a draft. In the editor, open the Synthesis panel and choose the button that compares the sources your draft cites. The comparison opens in a new tab. See Building a synthesis matrix.
A new comparison starts with four questions: Method, Sample, Main finding and Limitation. Nothing is read until you ask.
Fill the table
- Choose Fill the table. Later, when you add papers or questions, the same button reads only the new cells (for example Fill 6 cells).
- Folio reads the papers a few at a time and fills them in as it goes; the header shows how many papers it has read so far.
- If you close the tab, the comparison carries on from where it stopped the next time you open it, without spending another run.
Each paper is read whole when it fits (about 120,000 characters, which covers most papers). A longer paper is read by the passages most relevant to your questions, and a paper with only an abstract is read from its abstract. The line under the comparison's title says how many papers were read whole, read in part, and read from the abstract only.
Questions
Choose Add a question to add a column. Pick one of the Standard questions (Question, Method, Sample, Main finding, Limitation, Setting, Measures or Theory), or choose Your own question and type it.
A question must be a question, between 3 and 200 characters. Compare won't take a request to write something; it asks you to ask the papers a question instead, because the writing stays yours.
Each column's menu has Edit the question and Remove this question. When you edit a question, its cells are marked Out of date until you fill the table again.
What a cell can say
- An answer and its page. Scholar found the answer, and the sentence it rests on is in the paper.
- The paper doesn't say. Scholar read the whole paper and found no answer. This only appears when the whole paper was read.
- Not in the part read. Scholar read only part of the paper (its relevant passages or its abstract), and that part doesn't answer the question. The rest of the paper may.
- No text to read. Folio has no text for this paper yet. Open it to find the full text, or add the PDF.
- Didn't finish. The reading failed, or the sentence it rested on wasn't in the paper, so nothing is shown. When no new cells are waiting, the button at the top reads, for example, Try 2 cells again; retrying is free, up to three tries for each cell.
- Out of date. The question or the paper's text changed since the cell was read.
- Not asked yet. The cell is new and hasn't been read.
Check the evidence
Click a cell, or move to it with the arrow keys and press Enter. A panel opens with:
- Scholar's reading: the short answer.
- From the paper: the sentence it rests on, with its page.
- Open at and the page: opens the paper at that page with the sentence highlighted.
- Mark as checked: your own record that you read the sentence at its page and agree with the reading. The cell then shows Checked, and the header counts how many answers you have checked.
In the table, the arrow keys move between cells, Enter opens the evidence, Space marks the answer as checked, and Esc closes the panel.
Papers
Add papers opens a search of your Library and says how much room the comparison has left. To take a paper out, open the menu beside its title and choose Remove from this comparison; the paper stays in your Library.
Your saved comparisons
Comparisons are saved as you work. Find them all at /library/compare (Comparisons in the Library's More actions menu), each with its number of papers and questions and when it was last edited. In a comparison, More actions has Rename and Delete comparison. Deleting a comparison removes its questions and answers; the papers stay in your Library.
There is no export of a comparison yet.
Plans and sizes
Compare is part of Fellow and Chair. On Scholar, choosing Compare opens the upgrade prompt before a comparison is made, so no questions are set up for a table that can't be filled. Each fill uses one run of your Compare allowance, however many cells it reads: 10 a day on Fellow and 30 a day on Chair. Retrying cells that didn't finish, and carrying on with a fill you already started, cost nothing.
A comparison holds up to 15 papers and 6 questions on Fellow, and up to 30 papers and 8 questions on Chair. If you start a comparison from more papers than that, Folio keeps as many as your plan allows and says how many were left out.