TL;DR: Litmaps is a website that turns a few papers you trust into a visual map of connected research. You add "seed" papers, and it follows their citations to find more studies on your topic. Each paper lands on the map by year and impact, so the key ones stand out fast. It can also email you when new papers on your topic come out. As a high schooler, that makes it a quick way to build a reading list for a research project. Start with two or three solid seeds, and read the papers behind the dots. If mapping research makes you want to do your own, Veritas AI's AI Scholars program is a great place to start. You learn Python and AI in live classes at a 5:1 student-to-mentor ratio, with no coding experience needed. Along the way, you build a real AI project with a small group of peers.
If you are a high schooler starting a research project, you've probably hit this wall. You find one great paper. Then you wonder what else is out there. A regular search mostly turns up blogs and news stories. Litmaps takes the papers you already have and shows you the research around them on one map.
Litmaps says it's used by more than 350,000 researchers in 150 countries. You don't need to be a scientist to join them. A question you're curious about is enough. Say you want to know whether AI can spot an essay written by a chatbot. One well-known paper on that question can grow into a whole map of related work.
What is Litmaps?
Litmaps is a literature mapping tool that builds a visual map of research papers from the ones you pick. A literature map shows how the studies on a topic connect. Litmaps calls itself a literature review assistant. A literature review is the step where you read what's already known before starting your own work. The tool comes from Litmap Limited, a company based in New Zealand.
Its database holds more than 270 million research articles across many subjects. So one map can pull in studies from computer science, medicine, psychology, and more. As a high schooler, this helps when your teacher asks for real sources and you only have one. You need an account to build and save a map. Your first map can start from a single paper title.
How does Litmaps work?
Litmaps works by following the citation links between papers. Every paper has references, which are the earlier studies it used. It also has citations, which are the later studies that used it. Litmaps starts from your seed papers and follows both kinds of links. Then it suggests the papers most tightly connected to your seeds. Some suggestions link to your seeds only through another paper. A keyword search would likely miss those.
You can change how Litmaps hunts for papers, too. It offers three search algorithms. The default, Shared Citations & References, uses the citation links above. Common Authors finds other work by the same research teams. Similar Text uses AI to compare titles and abstracts instead of citations.
On the map, each dot is a paper, and each line is a connection. By default, older papers sit on the left, and highly cited ones sit near the top. As a high schooler, this helps when you don't know a topic's big terms yet. The map shows you which papers matter before you even know what to search for.
What are the main features of Litmaps?
Litmaps has five main features: Seed Maps, Discover, Visualize, Monitor, and Share. Each one helps with a different part of a research project.
Seed Maps: Type in one paper's title or DOI, and Litmaps draws the papers around it. A DOI is a paper's unique ID code. You get a fast first look at a topic before you commit to it.
Discover: Add a few papers you like, and Litmaps suggests more that connect to all of them. You add only the ones that fit, so your reading list grows without the clutter.
Visualize: You can change what the map's axes show, like publication date, citation count, or momentum. Momentum is citations adjusted for how new a paper is, so recent work can stand out next to the classics.
Monitor: Turn it on, and Litmaps emails you when new papers on your topic come out. That's handy for a project that runs across a whole semester.
Share: Send your map to a teacher, teammate, or mentor. Everyone looks at the same papers when you talk through your project.
How to use Litmaps for a research project
You can go from one paper to a full, up-to-date reading list in six steps. Here's how they play out with the chatbot-essay question.
Find your seed papers. Start with your question, then find one or two papers that answer part of it. For the chatbot-essay question, a strong seed is DetectGPT, a Stanford study on spotting AI-written text. Search by DOI when you can. Litmaps' help pages say that finds papers most reliably.
Build your first Litmap. Add your seeds and create a map. Your seeds show up as dots, with lines to the papers they connect to.
Change the axes to find the papers you need. Put date on the bottom axis and reference count on the side, then look at the top left. That's where review papers sit. They sum up a whole topic and make a great first read. Switch the side axis to citation count, and the high-impact papers rise to the top.
Explore related articles. Click "Explore Related Articles" to see suggestions around your seeds. Add the ones that match your question and skip the rest. Try the Similar Text algorithm too. It can surface brand-new papers that few people have cited yet.
Tag and export your papers. Save the papers you'll actually read under a tag named after your project, like "AI essay detection." When it's time to write your AI research paper, export them as a BibTeX file for your reference list.
Turn on Monitor. Open your map, click "Monitor," then click "Enable Monitor." Check those emails every week or two, and add any new paper that fits.
If this is your first map, start small. One good seed paper is enough to see how a topic is laid out.
Once your map fills in, set the axes to momentum and map connectivity. Map connectivity counts how many papers on your map cite a given paper. The papers in the top right are the newest work your topic is buzzing about. Building on that edge is a natural way to find a question of your own. If you want help shaping that question into a project, Veritas AI's AI Fellowship with Publication & Showcase pairs you with a mentor for 15 one-on-one sessions. Together, you design and build an AI research project around your question. Then 4 sessions with a publication specialist help you prepare it for a journal or showcase.
Common mistakes to avoid when using Litmaps
Most Litmaps mistakes come from how you feed the map, and a few habits fix them. Here are the two that trip up new users most.
Starting with only one seed: A single paper gives Litmaps just one route into your topic. Add two or three seeds that look at your question from different sides, like one detection study and one on how students use chatbots.
Assuming every dot is peer-reviewed: Peer review is when other experts check a study before a journal publishes it. Litmaps also includes preprints from sites like arXiv, which haven't had that check yet. Look for a published version before you lean on a paper's results, since teachers and judges often ask where your sources came from.
Litmaps vs ResearchRabbit: what's the difference?
Litmaps and ResearchRabbit both build maps from seed papers, but they explore in different ways. They also share an owner now. Litmaps bought ResearchRabbit in 2025, and the two still run as separate apps. Here's how they compare.
|
Who runs it |
Litmap Limited |
Litmap Limited, since 2025 |
|
Database |
270+ million articles |
310+ million articles |
|
How you start |
A paper title, a DOI, keywords, or an imported file |
Seed articles, up to 50 per search on the free plan |
|
How you explore |
One map you refine, sorted on axes you choose |
Suggestions that adapt to what you read |
|
Standout extra |
Monitor, which emails you new papers on your topic, on every plan |
Warning badges that flag papers with possible problems, on the paid plan |
|
Sharing |
Share maps, plus a Team plan for groups |
Share collections on the free plan |
|
Plans |
||
|
Best for |
Keeping one topic map neat and current |
Wandering through a topic with lots of seeds |
You can use both. Start in ResearchRabbit when you want to roam, then move to Litmaps for one tidy map. As a high schooler with one clear question, you'll likely find Litmaps the easier home base.
Is Litmaps reliable?
Mostly yes, Litmaps is a reliable way to find real research, but it doesn't check whether each paper is right. Its data comes from three large open records of published research. They're Crossref, Semantic Scholar, and OpenAlex, which also cover sources like PubMed and arXiv. Litmaps refreshes this data every week. Its help center notes that citation-based search can be thrown off by predatory journals. These are journals that publish almost anything for a fee.
Its numbers have limits too. A paper's citation count can look lower in Litmaps than on Google Scholar. Each site counts citations a little differently. A dot on the map also doesn't mean you can read the full paper for free. As a high schooler, treat the map as your starting point, then judge each paper by reading it.
FAQs
1. Is Litmaps free?
Yes, Litmaps has a free plan, and it works well for a focused school project. It includes searches with up to 20 inputs, 100 articles per map, and monthly alerts. It also comes with a limited number of maps. A paid plan called Litmaps Pro removes those limits, and its pricing page lists the current cost. The education rate needs an academic email address. Some countries also get discounts.
2. What are good alternatives to Litmaps?
Good alternatives to Litmaps include ResearchRabbit, Connected Papers, and Semantic Scholar. Connected Papers builds a graph of papers similar to one starting paper. Semantic Scholar is a search engine that uses AI to help you understand papers quickly. Many students mix two or three of these tools, using each for a different step. You can compare ten options in this roundup of AI research tools for high school students.
3. How do I start a research project in high school?
You start with a question, and building a Litmap is one of the fastest ways to sharpen it. Pick something you're curious about, and if you need a spark, browse these AI research ideas. Then find one paper on it and map what's already been done. Narrow your question until you can test it with one dataset or one experiment. That small, testable question becomes the heart of your project. If you're starting from zero and want a guided path the whole way, Veritas AI's Combination program is built for that. You begin in AI Scholars, learning Python and AI with mentors and peers. Then you move into the one-on-one AI Fellowship to build your own project, with publication support at the end.
Where to learn more about Litmaps
The Litmaps Help Center has short, clear guides for each of its main features. These four are the most useful once you've built your first map.
Use and Edit Litmaps Visualization: How to read a map, change its axes, and label your papers.
Search Algorithms in Litmaps: What each of the three algorithms looks for and when to use it.
Monitor: Get Alerts for Important Research: How to set up alerts and change their settings.
Litmaps Database: Coverage, Open Access, and Article Indexing: Where Litmaps' papers come from and why some go missing.
Once your reading list is set, you can explore AI research opportunities in high school, from university labs to mentored programs.
Start your own AI research project with Veritas AI
If your Litmap has you curious about a question of your own, Veritas AI can take you there. Veritas AI has taught more than 3,200 students from over 160 countries. Its 200+ mentors from top universities and AI labs guide students through a real research project. Of the student papers submitted to peer-reviewed journals, 79% are accepted. You can compare the programs to find the right starting point for you.