| name | explore-recent-papers |
| description | Downloads and deeply analyzes the full text of recent papers from an academic journal using markitdown to convert PDFs to Markdown. Use when recent-papers context is missing or needs refreshing before a paper review. |
| disable-model-invocation | true |
Explore Recent Papers
Download and analyze the full text of up to 20 recent publications from the target journal/conference. Read the complete papers — not just abstracts.
Search Strategy
Finding Recent Papers
- Search arxiv for recent papers matching the journal name or conference proceedings
- Search PubMed Central (open access) for biomedical journals
- Search Semantic Scholar for papers with open-access PDFs
- Search Google Scholar for the journal's recent publications
- Check the journal's website for recent issue tables of contents
For each paper found, collect: title, authors, year, DOI, and PDF URL.
Priority Order for Full-Text Access
- arxiv preprint —
https://arxiv.org/pdf/<arxiv-id>.pdf
- bioRxiv / medRxiv preprint
- PubMed Central
- Author's institutional page
- Semantic Scholar — links to open-access PDFs
If no full text is available after all attempts, fall back to abstract-only analysis for that paper.
Download Process
Create Paper Directory
mkdir -p "context/<journal-slug>/recent-papers"
Download PDFs
curl -L -o "context/<journal-slug>/recent-papers/<slugified-title>.pdf" "<pdf-url>"
Use a slugified version of the paper title (lowercase, hyphens, remove special characters) for filenames.
Convert PDFs to Markdown
markitdown "context/<journal-slug>/recent-papers/<slugified-title>.pdf" > "context/<journal-slug>/recent-papers/<slugified-title>.md"
After conversion, read the full Markdown text of each paper.
Verify Downloads
After downloading, verify each file:
ls -la "context/<journal-slug>/recent-papers/"
Check that files are not empty and have reasonable sizes (> 10KB for full papers).
Analysis Methodology
What to Extract from Full Papers
After reading the full text of each paper, analyze:
Topics & Themes
- What subjects are currently popular?
- What emerging trends exist?
- Which research gaps are being addressed?
Methodology Patterns
- Common research designs (experimental, observational, computational, etc.)
- Dominant data collection methods
- Popular analysis techniques and statistical approaches
- Typical sample sizes and study populations
Structural Conventions
- Typical paper sections and their organization
- Average paper length (in pages or word count)
- Abstract style (structured vs. unstructured, typical length)
- Figure and table usage patterns (how many, what types)
Citation Practices
- Citation style used by the journal (APA, Vancouver, etc.)
- Typical number of references
- Commonly cited frameworks, methods, or foundational works
Novelty Bar
- What counts as a sufficient contribution in this venue?
- Types of novelty valued (empirical, theoretical, methodological, practical)
- What is clearly insufficient for acceptance?
Sample Size
Aim for 20 papers with full text. If fewer full texts are available, supplement with abstract-only papers and clearly note the limitation.
Quality Checks
- Focus on RECENT publications (last 1-2 years)
- Verify papers are actually from the target journal
- Note how many papers were read in full vs. abstract-only
- Save all downloaded files for reproducibility
Output Location
Save to context/<journal-slug>/recent-papers-analysis.md (cache)
AND <report-directory>/02-recent-papers-analysis.md (session artifact)
Keep all downloaded PDFs and converted Markdown files in context/<journal-slug>/recent-papers/ for future reference.
