Scite
Overview
Scite is a research tool that uses artificial intelligence to help researchers discover and evaluate scientific articles. It provides 'Smart Citations' that show how a publication has been cited, including whether the citation provides supporting or contrasting evidence. This allows users to see the context of citations and assess the impact and reliability of research. Scite is designed for researchers, students, and professionals who need to quickly understand the landscape of scholarly literature.
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Key Features
- Smart Citations showing citation context (supporting or contrasting)
- Dashboard for tracking citation activity
- Browser extension for instant access to citation context
- Search filters by field, journal, and author
- Citation reports for papers and authors
Pros
- Provides context for citations, not just counts
- Saves time by quickly showing how papers are cited
- Useful for literature reviews and understanding research impact
Cons
- Full features require a subscription
- Coverage may be limited to certain disciplines
- Learning curve for interpreting citation contexts
Who Is This Tool Best For?
Researchers, academics, and students who need to analyze citation context and evaluate research impact.
Pricing
Scite is paid software, listed at 4.6 here. A paid subscription, usually per user, with institutional licences available, so the cost is a seat rather than a volume of use. Details are on the vendor site. Only the Scite site can confirm what you would pay.
Alternatives
- A citation index — Complete records of who cited whom, with no classification of how.
- Consensus — Aggregates a claim across studies rather than examining one paper’s reception.
- Reading the citing papers — Unambiguous and slow, which is why the classification exists.
Our AI tools directory gives each of them a full write-up.
Use cases
Checking whether a finding held up
Contrasting citations are the fastest way to learn a result was later disputed.
Assessing a source before relying on it
Citation context screens better than a journal name, because it reflects how the field treated the work.
Finding where a method was applied
Following how a technique was cited in later papers shows its real use rather than its stated one.
Scite: the questions we hear most
What is Scite?
A research tool built around citation context: for a paper, it shows how later work cited it, classified as supporting, contrasting or merely mentioning.
Who is it for?
Researchers assessing whether a finding still holds, and reviewers who need to know whether a claim was challenged rather than only how often it was cited.
Is Scite free?
No. It is a paid subscription, generally per user, with institutional access available, so the cost is a licence rather than usage.
What does a citation count hide?
Whether anyone disagreed. A paper can be cited two hundred times and be wrong, and the useful signal is how many of those citations were recorded as contrast rather than support.
Before you commit to a plan
Read the contrasting citations
A “contrasting” label is a starting point for reading, not a verdict. Some contrasts are about method and not about the finding.
Check coverage in your field
Classified citations depend on a corpus. Confirm the literature you rely on is well represented.