How to use ResearchLab
From your idea to a published paper, in 8 simple steps. Five minutes of reading and you know everything.
Create your account
Sign up with your email and phone. Your account and projects are free. For the Squirrel tools, subscribe to a monthly plan that gives you a batch of credits each month (one generation costs 1–30 credits depending on length).
Create my account →Create a project
A project = one study (dissertation, thesis or article). Click "Projects" in the menu, give it a title and your research question. All your work is organised inside it.
Create a project →Add your materials
On the project page, add your materials: PDF papers to analyse, data (CSV, Excel, SPSS .sav), Word drafts. They stay stored in the project — no re-uploading every time.
Follow the 6 stages
At the top of the project, the stage bar guides you: 💡 Conception → 📚 Literature → 🔬 Methods & data → 📝 Writing → 🛡️ Integrity → 🎓 Journal & submission. Each stage shows the right tools at the right moment. Click a stage to move to it.
Use a tool
Click a tool suggested by the stage (or "Open Squirrel tools"). Paste your text OR pick a project material, then click Generate. The result is automatically archived in the project with a version number (v1, v2…).
Get your results
Every result can be copied or downloaded as Word (formatting kept), PDF or plain text. Find all your outputs on the project page, any time.
Check integrity
At stage 5, paste your text (or pick your draft) and run the plagiarism check. You get a score and a report where passages too close to existing sources are highlighted. Click "Fix with Squirrel": the document loads automatically and flagged passages are rewritten with the required citations. Re-check — repeat until green (below 10%).
Find your journal and submit
The "Journal finder (DOAJ)" tool suggests real journals matched to your abstract (fees, licence). Save the target journal in the project and update the status: Preparing → Submitted → Revisions → Accepted 🎉.
Frequent questions
What are credits, and what does an action cost?
Credits pay for Squirrel's work. Rough guide: improving a paragraph ≈ 1–3 ◆ · an abstract ≈ 3–8 ◆ · a literature review ≈ 10–30 ◆ · actually-computed statistics ≈ 20–40 ◆ · a plagiarism check ≈ 6 ◆ per 250 words. The estimated cost shows before every generation, the exact cost after. Top up by bank transfer from the Pricing page.
Which files can I upload?
PDF, Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx), OpenOffice, RTF, images (PNG/JPG — e.g. a screenshot of SPSS output), SPSS (.sav read natively, .sps), TXT, CSV, Markdown, HTML, BibTeX/RIS. If a file can't be read, the message tells you exactly what to do.
Are my documents confidential?
Yes. Your manuscripts are never published, shared, or used to train models. Files sent to tools are deleted after processing; project materials stay in your private space until you delete them.
Can Squirrel invent references?
Our tools are explicitly designed to work only on YOUR documents and never invent references. The journal finder only uses real journals from the DOAJ directory. Always review — you remain the author.
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