# Scim: Intelligent Skimming Support for Scientific Papers

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.04561 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.04561/

## Key facts

- Cited by 27 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 9 May 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [NLPeer: A Unified Resource for the Computational Study of Peer Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.06651/) (2022)
- [Cocoa: Co-Planning and Co-Execution with AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10999/) (2024)
- [What Can Natural Language Processing Do for Peer Review?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06563/) (2024)
- [MASSW: A New Dataset and Benchmark Tasks for AI-Assisted Scientific Workflows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06357/) (2024)
- [A Question Answering Framework for Decontextualizing User-facing Snippets from Scientific Documents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14772/) (2023)
- [Selenite: Scaffolding Online Sensemaking with Comprehensive Overviews Elicited from Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02161/) (2023)
- [The Semantic Reader Project: Augmenting Scholarly Documents through AI-Powered Interactive Reading Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14334/) (2023)
- [Paper Copilot: A Self-Evolving and Efficient LLM System for Personalized Academic Assistance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.04593/) (2024)
- [Steering AI-Driven Personalization of Scientific Text for General Audiences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.09969/) (2024)
- [Language Models as Critical Thinking Tools: A Case Study of Philosophers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04516/) (2024)
- [Augmented Physics: Creating Interactive and Embedded Physics Simulations from Static Textbook Diagrams](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18614/) (2024)
- [The Next Phase of Scientific Fact-Checking: Advanced Evidence Retrieval from Complex Structured Academic Papers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.20844/) (2025)
- [SciDaSynth: Interactive Structured Data Extraction from Scientific Literature with Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13765/) (2024)
- [Research Borderlands: Analysing Writing Across Research Cultures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.00784/) (2025)
- [Attribution Gradients: Incrementally Unfolding Citations for Critical Examination of Attributed AI Answers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.00361/) (2025)
- [SF-RAG: Structure-Fidelity Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Academic Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.13647/) (2026)
- [SPACE-IDEAS: A Dataset for Salient Information Detection in Space Innovation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16941/) (2024)
- [TreeReader: A Hierarchical Academic Paper Reader Powered by Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18945/) (2025)
- [LitPivot: Developing Well-Situated Research Ideas Through Dynamic Contextualization and Critique within the Literature Landscape](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02600/) (2026)
- [ArguMentor: Augmenting User Experiences with Counter-Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02795/) (2024)
- [CARE: A Clue-guided Assistant for CSRs to Read User Manuals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03633/) (2024)
- [Collage: Decomposable Rapid Prototyping for Information Extraction on Scientific PDFs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.23478/) (2024)
- [Probing the Future of Meta-Analysis: Eliciting Design Principles via an Agentic Research IDE](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.18239/) (2026)
- [From Toil to Thought: Designing for Strategic Exploration and Responsible AI in Systematic Literature Reviews](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05514/) (2026)
- [Explain Like I'm 5 or Whatever I Choose: Evaluating the Potential for Interactive Complexity in Language Model Responses](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.06788/) (2026)
- [PaperFlow: Profiling, Recommending, and Adapting Across Daily Paper Streams](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.07454/) (2026)
- [FootprintRAG: Visual Analytics for Evidence Context Refinement in RAG-based Scientific Literature Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.19601/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Researchers need to keep up with immense literatures, though it is time-consuming and difficult to do so. In this paper, we investigate the role that intelligent interfaces can play in helping researchers skim papers, that is, rapidly reviewing a paper to attain a cursory understanding of its contents. After conducting formative interviews and a design probe, we suggest that skimming aids should aim to thread the needle of highlighting content that is simultaneously diverse, evenly-distributed, and important. We introduce Scim, a novel intelligent skimming interface that reifies this aim, designed to support the skimming process by highlighting salient paper contents to direct a skimmer's focus. Key to the design is that the highlights are faceted by content type, evenly-distributed across a paper, with a density configurable by readers at both the global and local level. We evaluate Scim with an in-lab usability study and deployment study, revealing how skimming aids can support readers throughout the skimming experience and yielding design considerations and tensions for the design of future intelligent skimming tools.