PDFAITools
Scite
AI citation analysis tool. See how papers are cited — supporting, contrasting, or mentioning claims.
What is Scite?
What is Scite?
Scite is an AI-powered citation analysis platform that goes far beyond simply counting how many times a paper has been cited. It uses machine learning to classify citations as supporting, contrasting, or merely mentioning the claims of a paper, giving researchers a much richer understanding of how scientific evidence accumulates.
Smart Citations
The core innovation is the "Smart Citation" — each citation is shown in context with a snippet of the citing paper, and labeled with its sentiment. This lets you instantly see whether the field broadly supports a finding, or whether there is significant controversy and contradiction around it.
Who Should Use Scite?
- Researchers evaluating the reliability of a study before building on it
- Science journalists and policy makers assessing the robustness of evidence
- Students learning to critically appraise academic literature
- Librarians supporting research integrity programs
Key Features
Every citation is classified as supporting, contrasting, or mentioning — revealing the true scientific consensus.
See the exact sentence in which a paper was cited, in context, without having to open the citing paper.
Ask research questions and get answers grounded in real cited evidence from the scientific literature.
Track citation trends for any paper or author and monitor how reception of a work changes over time.
Upload a manuscript and check whether any of your cited papers have been significantly contradicted.
Who Uses Scite?
Quickly assess whether a key study has been replicated and supported or challenged by subsequent research.
Journalists and policy analysts can gauge the strength of evidence behind a scientific claim before reporting on it.
Check that your references are solid and flag any citations that have since been retracted or heavily disputed.
Teach students to evaluate the quality and standing of evidence rather than treating all publications equally.
Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Unique supporting/contrasting citation classification has no direct competitor
- Helps identify retracted or disputed papers before you cite them
- Citation snippets save enormous time in literature assessment
- Scite Assistant provides evidence-grounded AI answers
❌ Cons
- Premium features require a paid subscription
- Coverage is stronger for biomedical and natural sciences
- Classification accuracy, while high, is not perfect for nuanced citations
- Full-text access still depends on your institutional subscriptions
Scite Pricing
Free
- Basic citation counts
- Limited Smart Citations
- Public dashboards
Premium
- Unlimited Smart Citations
- Scite Assistant
- Reference check
- Citation alerts
- Export capabilities
Team
- All Premium features
- Team dashboards
- API access
- Institutional licensing
Scite earns a 4.2/5 rating from our editorial team. Its generous free tier lets you explore core features before upgrading, making it a low-risk choice for individuals and teams. Standout strengths include unique supporting/contrasting citation classification has no direct competitor and helps identify retracted or disputed papers before you cite them.
Get Started with Scite →