Folio Review gives your draft the kind of read it would get from a small panel — before you send it to the people whose time is expensive. It's meant for the revision stage: after the argument exists, when you want to know where it's weak.
The three reviewers
Rather than one generic pass, Review runs three distinct perspectives, because that's closer to how real review works:
- Methods — is the approach sound? Are the claims supported by what you actually did? Where does the evidence not reach as far as the sentence?
- Clarity — can a reader follow the argument? Where does it assume too much, bury the point, or lose the thread?
- The Skeptic — the reviewer looking for the hole. What's the strongest objection, the alternative explanation, the "yes, but"?
Each reviewer reports separately, so you get three angles instead of one averaged opinion. Disagreement between them is a signal, not a bug — it usually points at the part of the draft that isn't settled yet.
The Reviewer Report
The output is a Reviewer Report published at a public link (/review/<code>). It's provenance-stamped: it records what was reviewed and when, so the report is verifiable rather than just asserted. You can share that link with a co-author or advisor, or keep it as a record of what the draft looked like before a round of revisions.
What it is — and isn't
Review is a mirror, not a judge. It will tell you where an argument is thin or a claim outruns its evidence; it will not tell you your paper is "good" or "ready," because those aren't things a model can honestly certify. Treat it the way you'd treat a sharp colleague's marginal notes: some you'll act on, some you'll disagree with, and the disagreement itself is useful.
It also doesn't replace peer review or a human advisor. It's the pass you run first, so that by the time a person reads it, they're spending their attention on the hard parts instead of the ones a panel could have caught.
Tips
- Run it on a real draft, not an outline. The reviewers need an argument to push on.
- Read the Skeptic last and slowest. It's the one most likely to change what you write next.
- Revise, then re-run. A second report on the revised draft shows whether you actually closed the gaps or just moved them.
Related: The proof-of-work report · How Folio checks your quotes