CiteRead: Integrating Localized Citation Contexts into Scientific Paper Reading

Abstract

When reading a scholarly paper, scientists oftentimes wish to understand how follow-on work has built on or engages with what they are reading. While a paper itself can only discuss prior work, some scientific search engines can provide a list of all subsequent citing papers; unfortunately, they are undifferentiated and disconnected from the contents of the original reference paper. In this work, we introduce a novel paper reading experience that integrates relevant information about follow-on work directly into a paper, allowing readers to learn about newer papers and see how a paper is discussed by its citing papers in the context of the reference paper. We built a tool, called CiteRead, that implements the following three contributions: 1) automated techniques for selecting important citing papers, building on results from a formative study we conducted, 2) an automated process for localizing commentary provided by citing papers to a place in the reference paper, and 3) an interactive experience that allows readers to seamlessly alternate between the reference paper and information from citing papers (e.g., citation sentences), placed in the margins. Based on a user study with 12 scientists, we found that in comparison to having just a list of citing papers and their citation sentences, the use of CiteRead while reading allows for better comprehension and retention of information about follow-on work.