Quick start

Quick Install

Download link: https://github.com/rwst/LitBall/releases/

Quick Start

• Click on New Query

• Name your query

• Input DOIs of starting papers (at least one)

You should now see a new query card. However, it needs configuration before you can expand the query. - Click Complete Settings - Give at least one mandatory keyword that needs to be present in a paper for it not to be rejected - Click Confirm

The query card should now show the Start Expansion button. Click it. LitBall should directly download all forward and backward-linked papers of your core papers.

You should now see the Automatic filtering button. Click it. Abstracts and TLDRs of all new DOIs should be downloaded directly.

You should now see the Supervised filtering button. Click it. LitBall switches to a second screen with cards for all papers. Accept some by clicking on their Accepted radio button. When done, click Finish on the rail on the left side.

You should now see the Start Expansion button in the query card, again, and the number of accepted papers increased.

Congratulations! You went through one cycle of snowballing. Do this until no more new papers are acceptable. You always see the date of the last expansion in the card, so wait some months until new papers on your topic will have appeared. They will be found in a new expansion step, as they likely cite one of the papers you accepted.