For Research Papers
Understand any research paper — with the citations to prove it.
Sidenote is a Chrome extension that reads the paper you have open — arXiv, a journal PDF, or one you upload — and helps you get through it: plain-English explanations, a glossary of the jargon, and chat. Every answer cites the paper and scrolls you to the exact line.
The problem
Papers are dense on purpose. You still have to read them.
Undefined notation, acronyms three sub-fields deep, a methods section written for the four people who already know it. Most AI tools will happily summarise a paper — and just as happily invent a result it never claimed.
Sidenote is built for trust: it explains and summarises, but every claim is pinned to a passage you can jump to and check. The paper stays the source of truth.
How it works
How Sidenote works on a paper.
Reviewing a stack of papers? Bundle them into a Collection and ask one question across all of them — every citation names its paper.
Use cases
Get through the paper, not just the abstract.
- “Explain this paragraph in plain English.”Highlight a dense passage and Sidenote rewrites it in plain language — without losing the meaning, and with the original still one click away.
- “What do all these acronyms mean?”One click builds a glossary of every term and acronym in the paper, each entry linked to where it's first defined.
- “What did they actually do, and on what data?”Sidenote summarises the method and dataset and cites the exact lines — so you can judge the work, not just the abstract's spin.
- “Where does it say that?”Every answer carries a citation. Click it and Sidenote scrolls the PDF to the exact sentence and highlights it.
- “How do these three papers compare?”Bundle a set of papers into a Collection and ask synthesising questions across them — each citation names the paper it came from.
- “Is this relevant to my work?”Get a grounded summary of the contribution and limitations before you commit an afternoon to the full read.
Comparedvs ExplainpaperExplainpaper is great at highlight-to-explain on a paper you upload. Sidenote does that in the browser on arXiv and live PDFs — and adds chat, a one-click glossary, and citations that scroll the PDF to the source. vs SciSpaceSciSpace is a full research platform you bring papers into. Sidenote is a lightweight per-user reader that travels with you — across papers and the rest of the web — and grounds every answer in a citation you can verify.
Sidenote vs the academic AI tools.
The dedicated paper tools are good. Sidenote's difference is that it rides along in the browser you already read in, works beyond academia too, and pins every answer to a passage you can jump to.
FAQ
Common questions about reading papers with Sidenote.
Does it work on arXiv?
Yes. Open an arXiv abstract page or the PDF and Sidenote reads it in the side panel — no upload, no copy-paste. The same works for PDFs hosted anywhere your browser can open them, and for journal PDFs.
Can it explain the jargon and acronyms?
That's a core feature. Sidenote can rewrite any passage in plain English, and a one-click glossary lists every acronym and technical term in the paper with a definition and a jump to where it's used. Dense fields stop being a wall of undefined notation.
Does it make things up about the paper?
Every answer is checked server-side against the passages actually retrieved from the paper before it reaches you — if a claim has no support, the citation is dropped. Click any citation and Sidenote scrolls the PDF to the exact sentence and highlights it, so you can verify it yourself in a second.
Can I ask questions across several papers at once?
Yes. Bundle related papers into a Collection and ask one question across the whole set — for a literature review or a methods comparison — and each citation names the source paper.
Do I have to upload the paper?
Not for papers you can open in your browser — arXiv, journal PDFs, anything that renders as a PDF. For a paper that isn't online, drop the PDF onto the side panel and Sidenote ingests it the same way. Scanned PDFs are run through OCR first so even image-only papers become searchable.
Is it free?
There's a free tier, and a 7-day Pro trial with no card required that unlocks chat, larger documents and OCR. Paid plans start at £10/month.
Try it on a paper
Read the paper. Trust the answer.
Add Sidenote to Chrome, open an arXiv paper or a PDF, and ask it anything. Free tier forever, 7-day Pro trial — no card required.
Works on arXiv, journal PDFs, and uploads · OCR for scanned papers