A Chrome extension for researchers
Know why it’s cited — without opening the paper.
Right-click any citation and WhyCited explains, in a side panel, the role that reference plays in the exact passage you are reading — graded by the evidence it could actually see.
Coming soon to the Chrome Web Store · Free plan includes 5 analyses a month
The product
One right-click, one considered answer.
You are mid-paragraph and a citation appears. Instead of opening it in a new tab and losing your place, ask WhyCited. The side panel explains the role that reference plays in the passage you are reading — and shows its working.
Quarterly Review of Work & Organisation · Vol. 18 (3)
Autonomy, trust and engagement in distributed research teams
S. Marchetti · J. Okonkwo · L. Devine
2. Literature review
Interest in employee autonomy has grown alongside the shift to distributed work. Prior studies report a positive association between perceived autonomy and engagement (Okafor & Lindqvist, 2021), although the strength of that association appears to vary across sectors. Fewer studies have examined how trust moderates this relationship in fully remote teams, and the evidence that exists is largely cross-sectional.
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Explain why this research is relevant
Perceived autonomy and work engagement: evidence from a cross-sector survey
Okafor, A. · Lindqvist, M. · 2021
Why it is relevant
Cited as prior evidence for the claim that perceived autonomy is associated with stronger engagement. The linked abstract reports a positive association in a cross-sector sample, consistent with the sentence it supports — though it does not address the sector-level variation the current authors go on to discuss.
Citation role
- Supports
- Contextualises
Current paper’s use
Establishes the autonomy–engagement association as prior evidence before the authors introduce trust as a moderator.
Linked paper’s contribution
Its abstract reports a positive association between perceived autonomy and engagement across 2,414 respondents in six sectors.
Evidence available
- Current paper
- Full text
- Linked paper
- Abstract only
Confidence: Moderate
Key evidence
Current paper — Literature review
“Prior studies report a positive association between perceived autonomy and engagement (Okafor & Lindqvist, 2021), although the strength of that association appears to vary across sectors.”
Linked paper — Abstract
“Across sectors, perceived autonomy showed a moderate positive association with work engagement (r = .41, p < .001).”
Limitations
- The linked paper’s full text was not available. This assessment is based on its abstract.
How it works
From citation to explanation in three steps.
Right-click a citation
Reading a paper in Chrome — an HTML journal page, an arXiv listing, a repository copy — right-click any citation link and choose “Explain why this research is relevant”.
It retrieves what is legally available
WhyCited identifies both papers, resolves the DOI, and gathers what is openly accessible: full text where it exists, otherwise the abstract or bibliographic metadata. It never bypasses paywalls.
You get an evidence-graded explanation
The side panel explains the citation’s role in that exact passage — what the citing authors use it for, what the cited paper contributes — with the evidence declared and confidence graded honestly.
Evidence transparency
Every answer declares its evidence.
Most AI tools answer with the same fluency whether they have read the paper or only its title. WhyCited grades every explanation by what it could actually access — and says so, plainly, in the result.
Confidence — high, moderate, or low — reflects evidence availability and the clarity of the relationship, not model bravado. Thin evidence means low confidence, and the limitations section tells you why.
The four access levels
- Full text
The paper is openly accessible. The explanation can quote and weigh specific passages.
- Abstract only
The abstract is public but the body is not. The answer says so, and confidence is capped accordingly.
- Metadata only
Title, authors, venue, references. The relationship is inferred cautiously — and marked as such.
- Unavailable
Nothing could be retrieved. WhyCited tells you that plainly instead of guessing.
Pricing
Priced by how much you read.
Every plan gets the same honest analysis. Paid plans raise the monthly allowance; Pro and Lab add deep analysis for the citations that deserve a second look.
Free
$0
For deciding whether WhyCited belongs in your reading workflow.
- 5 standard analyses / month
- No deep analyses
- No auto-escalation
Starter
$4.99/mo
For coursework and steady reading.
- 200 standard analyses / month
- No deep analyses
- No auto-escalation
Pro
Most popular$9.99/mo
For active research, with deep analysis for the hard cases.
- 500 standard analyses / month
- 50 deep analyses / month
- Hard cases auto-escalate to deep analysis
Lab
$19.99/mo
For literature reviews and heavy citation work.
- 1,500 standard analyses / month
- 150 deep analyses / month
- Hard cases auto-escalate to deep analysis
Deep analysis re-reads ambiguous or complex citations with a stronger reasoning model (Claude) — conflicting evidence, unclear roles, tangled methodology. Standard analyses use a fast model (Gemini) that handles the clear-cut majority.
FAQ
Fair questions, straight answers.
Does it bypass paywalls?
No. WhyCited retrieves only openly accessible content and public metadata — Crossref, arXiv, open-access copies. When a paper is behind a paywall, the analysis says exactly what it could access, often the abstract or metadata alone, and grades its confidence accordingly.
What data does the extension send?
Nothing, until you right-click and ask. At that moment it sends only the citation context: the page and link URLs, the link text, the citation sentence with its surrounding paragraphs and nearest heading, and paper metadata visible on the page. Never your browsing history, cookies, or anything from other tabs.
Does it work on PDFs?
Partially. HTML pages — journal sites, arXiv, open repositories — work best. Chrome’s built-in PDF viewer limits what any extension can read, so on PDFs WhyCited currently works from the URL and the metadata it can identify, and the result says so. Fuller PDF extraction is on the roadmap.
Which AI models does it use?
Standard analyses use Google’s Gemini. Deep analyses escalate to Anthropic’s Claude for a more careful read of ambiguous citations. All model calls run on our backend — provider API keys stay server-side and are never present in the extension.
Do I need an account?
Yes. Every plan, including Free with its 5 analyses a month, requires an account — it is how quotas are metered and abuse is kept out. Accounts are launching shortly, alongside the Chrome Web Store listing.
Read with the context in place.
Five free analyses a month. No card required.