Guide · Keeping up with the literature

How to keep up with the literature without it running your week.

Q: How many papers should I read a week?

There is no evidence-based number, and counting papers is the wrong unit. Decide by relevance: read the methods of the papers that pass the three triage questions, give the rest one line in your log or nothing. In most weeks that is a handful; in a week when a trial on your exact question publishes, it is one paper read properly.

Q: What about preprints?

PubMed's coverage of preprints is partial, so a PubMed-only feed under-reports them. Google Scholar alerts include preprints, and Paper Digest sends free daily digests for arXiv, bioRxiv and medRxiv. Log preprints as unreviewed, note the date, and check whether a peer-reviewed version has appeared before you cite one.

Q: Does keeping up help when I write the manuscript?

The running log is the raw material of your next Introduction and Discussion: finding, direction of the evidence, why it matters, link. When the manuscript is drafted, the same discipline applies in reverse: every reference in it should be checked against the published record and checked against the claim it supports before an editor does it, which is what PeerReviewAI's Peer Review does for $49.

A working method for clinicians, researchers and graduate students, in medicine or any field PubMed covers: decide what you follow, let something read the new papers on a schedule, triage in minutes, and keep a record. Tool facts quoted from each site, 14 September 2026.

The five steps Ways to keep up, compared

Updated 2026-09-14 · 5 steps · 6 sources compared

Why it breaks

Alerts notify. They do not read.

They match words, not questions

A PubMed saved-search alert sends "new search results", 1 to 200 records at a time. A Scholar alert sends every new match, several times a week. Neither knows which of them answers anything.

They have no memory

The same paper arrives in two alerts and a table-of-contents email. Nothing connects this week's result to the one that contradicted it in March.

They hand you the reading

Titles and abstracts. Whether the evidence moved is for you to work out, one abstract at a time, usually at night.

The method

Five steps, one slot a week.

The steps are tool-agnostic. The tool only decides how much of step 4 you do by hand.

Step	Do this	Because
1. Write two to five standing questions	Phrase each as a question a paper could answer: "does early weight-bearing after ankle fixation change outcomes", "does single-cell sequencing change how this tumour is subtyped". Not "ankle fracture". Not "scRNA-seq".	Questions filter. Keywords flood.
2. Pick one source per job	A synthesized digest for the standing questions. A raw alert only for the narrow exact query you must not miss, a drug, a device, a trial registration. A reading app for browsing, if you browse.	Every extra feed is a second inbox.
3. Fix one slot a week	Read on the day the digest arrives, in a calendar-blocked half hour, not when alerts fire.	Daily alerts turn reading into interrupt handling.
4. Triage with three questions	Does the design answer my question? Would the effect change what I do? Would I cite it? Read the methods of the yes papers only.	Most new papers fail the first question.
5. Keep a running log	One line per paper that passed: finding, direction of the evidence, why it matters, link. Bring the log to your journal club; it is also next year's Introduction.	Memory is the part alerts never provide.

Ways to keep up

Six ways to keep up, in their own words.

Alert facts quoted from the My NCBI and Google Scholar help pages; product facts from each vendor's site; Journal Club facts verified in the product.

Way to keep up	What arrives	Price	Best for
PubMed saved-search alerts (My NCBI)	"new search results" by email, daily, weekly or monthly, 1 to 200 records per message, as Summary or Abstract; no relevance ranking or summarization described	Free	a raw feed on an exact query
Google Scholar alerts	"newly published papers that match your search criteria", sent "right after we add new papers", usually several times a week; no summarization described	Free	coverage beyond PubMed, including preprints and books
Read by QxMD	"Your personalized medical & scientific journal": an app feed from "millions of articles from PubMed" and topic reviews; summaries not stated	Not stated on the page captured	a journal-style reading feed on your phone
MedLit AI Digest	"Every week, receive a curated digest of PubMed papers matched to your exact interests"; each paper "scored 0–100", with AI summaries of why it matters	"FREE BETA — LIMITED SPOTS"	per-paper scored summaries for clinicians while the beta is open
Paper Digest	Daily email digests with "one sentence" per paper across arXiv, PubMed, bioRxiv, medRxiv and more	Free daily digests for arXiv, bioRxiv and medRxiv; other areas by subscription, price not stated	a daily one-line scan of preprints
PeerReviewAI Journal Club	One written synthesis per topic from PubMed: what is new, which way the evidence moved, the bottom line, every paper linked; screened for relevance; remembers what it already sent you	Free monthly with any account (two topics); Premium $19.99/month, weekly, up to five topics, seven formats	keeping up weekly in your field without searching

The free way to start

Every PeerReviewAI account includes a monthly Journal Club email on two topics: one synthesis per topic from PubMed, what is new, which way the evidence moved, the bottom line, every paper linked. Premium makes it weekly on up to five topics for $19.99 a month. Writing a review rather than keeping up with one? See the AI literature review tools compared.

By role

Same method, different standing questions.

Clinicians

One standing question per decision you make every week. A monthly synthesis is enough to notice the evidence changing direction; keep the raw alert for a drug or device you prescribe.

Researchers

Build the questions around the claims in your current manuscript, and add a watch on your primary outcome so a competing result does not surprise you at review. Before you submit, have the manuscript's references checked against the record.

Graduate students

Start from the reading list you were given and turn its themes into questions. A digest replaces the pile of unread PDFs with a log you can defend in a supervision meeting.

FAQ

Questions, answered.

Don't see yours? Email us — we read every one.

How do I keep up with the medical literature as a resident or a busy clinician?+

Write down the two to five standing questions your week actually turns on, phrase each as a question a paper could answer, and let one source read the new literature on those questions for you on a schedule. Read once a week in a fixed slot, triage each paper with three questions (does the design answer mine, would the effect change what I do, would I cite it), and keep a one-line log of the papers that pass. A monthly synthesis is enough to notice the evidence changing direction; PeerReviewAI's Journal Club email does that for free with any account, in medicine or any field PubMed covers.

How many papers should I read a week?+

PubMed alerts or Google Scholar alerts?+

Both are free and neither summarizes. A PubMed saved-search alert sends "new search results" daily, weekly or monthly, 1 to 200 records per message, as Summary or Abstract; it covers what PubMed indexes and matches your exact query. A Google Scholar alert sends "newly published papers that match your search criteria", usually several times a week, across a wider net that includes preprints and books, with more noise. Use PubMed for a narrow query you must not miss, Scholar when the field publishes outside MEDLINE, and a synthesized digest for the standing questions.

Can I trust an AI digest to summarize papers for me?+

Only when every claim links to the paper it came from and you spot-check the ones you act on. MedLit AI Digest's own footer says "AI-generated summaries — always verify against original publications", which is the right instruction for any of them, PeerReviewAI's included. Journal Club links every paper it discusses to its PubMed record and remembers what it has already sent you, so checking is one click and repeats do not pile up.

What about preprints?+

Does keeping up help when I write the manuscript?+

Sources

Sources

Every figure on this page is quoted from the primary source listed here. Verification dates are recorded per source.

[1]My NCBI Help, "Saving and Managing Searches": saved-search email updates, frequency and item counts. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53592/Help page · verified 2026-09-14
[2]Google Scholar Help: email alerts. scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.htmlHelp page · verified 2026-09-14
[3]Read by QxMD product page. www.qxmd.com/readVendor page · verified 2026-09-14
[4]MedLit AI Digest home page. medlit.io/Vendor page · verified 2026-09-14
[5]Paper Digest home page. www.paperdigest.org/Vendor page · verified 2026-09-14

Let the literature find you.

Two topics, one synthesized email a month, every paper linked to PubMed. Free with any account; weekly on Premium.

Free monthly Journal Club email AI literature review tools compared

For papers you're reading · Peer Review is for the manuscript you're submitting

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