What Cold Start does
Cold Start takes a topic description and returns a structured research brief. It searches the academic literature, identifies relevant sources, suggests a thesis angle, and outlines a structure you can start writing from. It's not a first draft — it's the work you'd normally do in the first few hours of a new project, compressed into a few seconds.
How to use it
- Open a document and click Cold Start in the AI panel.
- Describe your topic, your field, and any specific angle you already have in mind. The more detail you give, the more useful the output.
- Review the brief — it includes a research context section, a suggested thesis angle, an outline, and a list of sources.
- Add suggested sources to your library with one click. They're ready to cite immediately.
- Start writing from the outline, or use it as a reference and structure your paper your own way.
What the brief includes
- Research context — a short summary of where the field stands on your topic
- Suggested thesis angle — a specific, arguable position grounded in the literature
- Outline structure — section-by-section breakdown for your paper
- Relevant sources — papers and books worth reading, with brief descriptions of why they matter
Tips
- Be specific about your topic. "Social media and politics" produces a vague brief. "The effect of algorithmic content curation on political polarization among 18-24 year olds in the US" produces a useful one.
- The brief is a starting point, not a prescription. Edit the outline, reject the thesis angle, ignore sources that aren't relevant. It's your paper.
- You can run Cold Start multiple times with different parameters to explore different angles on the same topic.
Plan limits
Cold Start is available on every plan. Scholar (free): 3 Cold Starts per month. Fellow: 1 Cold Start per day. Chair: 2 Cold Starts per day. The free Scholar plan also includes 10 Scholar AI questions and 3 Proofreads per month.