You open one tab for a journal article. Then another. Then a PDF. Then a YouTube lecture. Then a Google Doc where you paste a quote you might need later.
Three hours later, you have dozens of sources, scattered notes, screenshots, and ideas, but no clear way to bring everything together when it's time to write.
Cluing helps you keep your entire research process connected from the first source you find to the final draft you create.
How Cluing Works
Cluing is an AI-powered knowledge base. You save things you find - articles, PDFs, YouTube videos, your own notes - and organize them into Topics (think: smart folders, one per project). Then you use AI Chat to make sense of it all, with the AI reading directly from what you saved - not from the internet in general.
Every snippet you save stays linked to its original source, so when you need to cite something later, you always know where it came from.
Quickstart Guide to Cluing →
Step 1: Create a Topic for Every Project
Start by creating a Topic for your assignment. Examples:
History Essay - Causes of World War I
Biology Research - Climate Change Effects on Ecosystems
Marketing Project - Netflix Business Strategy
Your Topic becomes the central place for everything related to that project:
research papers
articles
questions
ideas
Everything stays together throughout the entire research process.
📌 Working with classmates? Share a Topic and keep everyone's insights in one place. Add sources, comments, notes, and ideas together. Everyone can see the same context - from the first source collected to the final project.
Step 2: Save As You Go - Not At the End
Research often happens across many different places. Cluing lets you capture important information as you find it.
Reading an article or journal paper? Highlight the passage you actually need and clip it with the browser extension. The snippet saves with the source URL attached. No more "I read this somewhere" three days before the deadline.
Working with a PDF? Open it in Cluing's Reader and highlight directly inside. Your highlights go straight into your Topic — no copy-pasting into a doc, no losing the page number.
Watching a lecture or documentary on YouTube? Save the video as a snippet. It stays in your Topic alongside your written sources, with a link back to the exact video.
Had a thought while reading? Create an Idea snippet right there. Your own thinking - a counterargument you noticed, a connection between two sources, a question you want to follow up on - belongs in the same place as everything else.
📌 Always add a short comment to each snippet: "supports my main argument", "contradicts Smith 2019 - worth addressing", "check if this is a primary or secondary source". Ten seconds now saves you an hour later.
Step 3: Use AI to Understand Your Sources
You've saved 15 sources. Now what?
Instead of rereading everything, open AI Chat and mention your Topic directly in the prompt. The AI reads everything in that specific Topic - your highlights, your Idea snippets, your comments - and works from that.
For a sociology essay on urbanization, you might ask:
"@Urbanization Research — what are the 3 main arguments across my sources? Do they agree or contradict each other?"
"Which of my saved sources would best support an argument about push vs. pull migration factors?"
For a business case study on Netflix, try:
"@Netflix Case Study - summarize the key strategic decisions I've saved evidence for."
"What's missing from my research? What angles haven't I covered yet?"
For a science project on plastic waste, ask:
"@Plastic Waste Research - what do my sources say about solutions? Group them by approach."
The AI isn't browsing the internet - it's reading your research specifically. What comes back is grounded in the sources you chose, not generic information about the topic.
Step 4: Go From Research to Outline
When you're ready to start writing, stay in the same conversation. Ask the AI to help you structure what you have:
"Suggest an outline for a 2000-word essay based on my research."
"What would be a strong opening argument, based on the sources I've saved?"
"Which source should I lead with, and why?"
The draft outline appears in Canvas, where you can edit it, ask for a different structure, or start filling in sections directly. You're not starting from a blank page - you're starting from your own insights.
What Actually Changes
The blank page problem isn't really about writing. It's about not being able to see what you already have.
When your sources, your highlights, your own notes, and your AI are all in the same place, connected and searchable, the writing becomes the easy part.
📌 Students, researchers, and academics can get 30% off Cluing plans. Reach out to us at [email protected] and we'll help you apply the discount.