How to Search & Best Practices

What is Consensus?

Consensus is an AI‑powered search engine for scientific and academic research. It searches only peer‑reviewed studies and scholarly publications; never blogs, news sites, or general‑knowledge pages. That makes it an ideal tool for researchers, students, and anyone who needs evidence‑backed answers. Learn more about how Consensus works here.

Consensus Searching Basics

To get the best results, it helps to understand two key things about how Consensus is designed:

1. Consensus is a search engine, not a chatbot.
2. Consensus only searches scientific and academic research papers.

That means Consensus works best when your requests are focused on topics found in peer-reviewed literature or scholarly studies. Unlike a chatbot, Consensus doesn’t just generate text, it finds and summarizes relevant scientific papers.

Consensus is not built for general knowledge queries (e.g. “What’s the capital of Germany?”), it’s built to help you conduct real research, faster.

Getting Started Searching

There is no single “right” way to search in Consensus. Whether you’re hunting for a specific article or exploring a broad question, Consensus adapts to your needs.

Search styles that work well

• Keywords
  • Vaccines
  • Cash transfers and poverty
• Open‑ended topics:
  • Effects of ability grouping on academic outcomes
  • SSRIs vs. St John’s Wort for depression
• Exact paper / author search:
  • “The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network Over 32 Years”
  • N. Eisenberg
• Simple research questions:
  • Are statins effective in elderly populations?
  • What is the impact of climate change on developing countries?
• Yes/No questions (activates the Consensus Meter):
  • Does creatine improve cognitive function in healthy adults?
  • Can mindfulness meditation reduce anxiety symptoms?

Advanced Techniques

• Search filters – Narrow by publication date, study type, sample size, journal quartile, and more.
  • Example: “Does fish oil improve depression?” filtered for human randomized controlled trials (RCTs)
• Complex queries – Combine multiple facets or comparisons.
  • Example: “Compare the environmental and economic impacts of carbon taxes vs cap‑and‑trade in developing countries”
• Format‑specific requests – Ask for bullet‑point summaries, pros/cons lists, or side‑by‑side tables to shape the output.
  • Example: “Summarize the pros and cons of intermittent fasting in bullet points”

Consensus puts high‑quality evidence at your fingertips.

Start with a clear research question, leverage filters, and use yes/no formatting to instantly see where the science stands – then dive deeper into the studies surfaced.