Question Miner (QM)

Discover Research Gaps 10x Faster

QM mines citation + reference contexts to surface scientifically defensible questions. From a single title, you receive structured questions, rationale, and opportunity tiers—no manual reading required.

3 Minutes or So

Start Your Research Sooner

Skip manual reading and get a structured list of research questions in minutes—so you can dive straight into critical thinking and experimental design.

Variable, High‑Value Output

Insights Tailored to Each Paper

Our system adapts to the signal richness of every article, delivering a curated set of relevant questions—no noise, just meaningful starting points for your work.

Impact‑Based Opportunity Tiers

Focus on What Matters Most

Each question is ranked High/Medium/Low based on impact and feasibility—helping you confidently invest effort where it counts.

—Validated across academic and industrial research workflows.—

What Question Miner Does

From a single paper title, QM reconstructs:

  • Abstract-level semantic metadata
  • Citation-context patterns ("how similar work tends to be cited")
  • Reference-context patterns ("what this class of work tends to build upon")
  • 12 categories of signals: limitations, assumptions, contradictions, boundaries, scope gaps, methodological anchors, and more.

QM then transforms these signals into structured research questions and ranked opportunity tiers, allowing you to identify meaningful research directions without manually reading dozens of papers.

How Question Miner Works

Signal Identification

Extract 12 types of citation + reference signals (limitations, contradictions, assumptions, boundaries) from paper titles and reconstructed contexts.

Question Structuring

Convert signals into structured scientific questions with explicit Scope, Limitation, and Desired Impact—ready for research planning.

Opportunity Ranking

Score each question by Impact × Feasibility to highlight High/Medium/Low opportunity tiers, helping you prioritize research efforts.

Why Signal-Driven Gap Discovery Matters

Manual literature review is slow, inconsistent, and constrained by human attention.

Signal-driven analysis offers three key advantages:

  • Uncovers problems invisible to keyword search
  • Avoids bias from reading a narrow set of papers
  • Highlights contradictions and boundary tensions across the field
  • Generates structured, defensible reasoning usable in proposals, internal reviews, and topic selection

QM turns research problem discovery from trial-and-error into a systematic, reproducible process.

Who Uses Question Miner?

  • PhD Students — Selecting dissertation topics with defensible, literature-aligned justification.
  • Postdocs — Scanning new domains and identifying scientifically meaningful problems quickly.
  • PIs & Lab Leads — Managing early-stage idea screening and guiding junior researchers.
  • Grant Writers — Building problem-driven proposal foundations grounded in real literature signals.
  • Corporate R&D & Innovation Units — Validating whether a problem is real, under-explored, or worth pursuing.
  • Innovation Consultants — Running scientific landscape scans without manually reading dozens of papers.

Want to Learn How to Use QM Effectively?

Read our complete guide on extracting research gaps, understanding QM outputs, and integrating results into your workflow.

Read the Complete Guide

Frequently Asked Questions

What input does Question Miner require?
Only a paper title. For best accuracy, please copy & paste the exact title to ensure the signal reconstruction pipeline works properly. QM will automatically generate abstract-level semantics, citation contexts, and reference contexts.
How long does an analysis take?
Most analyses finish within **3 minutes or so**. However, the number and strength of discovered questions vary depending on the paper's citation/reference density. Some papers yield multiple strong questions; others yield fewer but deeper insights.
Do I need to read the papers myself?
No. QM reconstructs the citation + reference signal space for you. Manual reading is optional and not required for QM to function.
What if the paper is very new with few citations?
QM still works. In such cases, reference-context signals become the primary source of analysis. Many high-value research gaps originate from reference-side limitations.
What if the paper has hundreds of citations?
QM uses a high-limit cap and prioritizes High-Influence citation signals to keep the analysis efficient and meaningful. Only the most information-dense citation patterns are processed.
Is the number of generated questions predictable?
No. And this is scientifically correct. Each paper contains different levels of citation richness, reference diversity, methodological constraints, and theoretical boundaries. Signal variation is a natural part of the literature landscape.
Can QM work across disciplines?
Yes. QM is signal-driven, not domain-specific. It works across physics, materials science, computer science, biology, engineering, social sciences, and interdisciplinary research.
Does QM replace full literature review?
No. QM accelerates problem discovery, not the entire review. It helps you identify scientifically grounded questions before diving deeper.
How reliable are the questions?
QM does not "invent" questions. It extracts and organizes signal patterns that already exist in citation and reference contexts. This yields defensible, high-value, literature-aligned questions—not hallucinations.
How do I interpret the Validation tags?
The Validation tag (Validated or Failed) is the result of our system's internal Quality Self-Check. This process is designed to ensure that all generated research opportunities meet our strict format and structural requirements. Status Meaning & Action Guide: • Validated (Internal: "Passed"): High Confidence. The entry has successfully passed all mandatory format and structural checks (e.g., key fields are under the 150-character limit). Recommended for direct use—these are the most reliable and ready-to-use suggestions. • Failed: Quality Warning. The entry contains valuable content but did not fully meet one or more automated quality standards (e.g., text length exceeded the limit). Requires Manual Review/Edit—we recommend you check and shorten the Source Context or Structured Question before use. Typically, the text length in a key field exceeded the system's limit. Design Note: Every identified signal passes through our strict quality screening process. We retain 'Failed' entries to ensure no potentially valuable signal is lost, even if it does not fully meet an automated quality standard, thus empowering the user for final manual judgment and refinement.
I want to learn more about using QM effectively

We have a comprehensive guide that covers how to use QM, interpret results, and integrate outputs into your research workflow. Read our detailed guide: How to Use Question Miner (QM) to Extract Research Gaps and High-Value Questions.

Does QM store or reuse my data?
No. Your inputs stay within your workspace. They are used solely for generating the requested analysis and are not recycled to train any models.
Can I customize or adjust scores within a team?
Yes. Teams can distribute credits among members.

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Paste a paper title.

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Discover research gaps — without reading dozens of papers.

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