Your first look-up

Nothing to install and no account to create. Open the site, search for a topic, read the entry, then follow a source.

01Open Sourcipedia

Go to sourcipedia.com. The home page is a single search box. A count of the articles sits at the bottom of the page, and a link to About sits in the corner.

There is no sign-in. Home, search, articles and the recent feed are open to everyone.

02Search for a topic

Type the name of a topic: a term, a person, a place or an event, such as photosynthesis or kelvin scale. Short names work better than full questions, because search matches names and words rather than meaning. Small typos are fine.

As you type, up to six matching entries appear under the box. Use the arrow keys and Enter to open one, or just press Enter to see the full results.

What you see

The results page is /search?q=…. It lists up to ten entries, best match first. Each result shows the title, the start of the summary, a few concept tags and the websites its sources come from. Click a result to open the entry.

03Read the entry

Each entry has its own page at /article/:id. From top to bottom:

• The main concept it belongs to, above the title.
• The title, and when the entry was written.
• The summary. Small numbered markers in the text are citations. Hover over one, or tab to it, to see the source's title and a Visit source link.
• Concept tags for the topics it touches.
• Sections such as Key facts and Claims, when the entry has them. Click a section's heading to show or hide it.
• The bibliography: every source, numbered, with its website and a link to the original.
• Related entries in the same main concept.

Articles & sources explains each part.

04Follow the sources

Entries are written by a model and published without human review. Before you rely on a statement, open the source it cites. If you are writing something, cite that source, not the entry.

For a long, cited report on your own question, start a run in ResearchAnything.

05When nothing matches

If no entry matches, Sourcipedia tries to answer from related entries it already has. You get a provisional card marked "Synthesized from related topics", with its sources and the topics it drew on. If there isn't enough related material, you get a short note instead.

Either way, your topic is added to the research queue. The "Request full research on this topic" button records that you want it. When the full entry is written, it shows up on the recent feed and in search. Search has the details.

06Browse what's new

Open /recent, or click the article count on the home page. It lists the newest entries first, each with its title, main concept, age and a short excerpt. More entries load as you scroll, and a Load more button does the same.

07Links and sharing

Each entry keeps its /article/:id address when new sources are added to it. If two entries on the same topic are merged, the one that was merged away stops working and shows "Article not found". Search for the topic to find the entry that remains.

08If the site is unavailable

Two pages can appear in place of the site:

• "The bots are reorganizing the shelves." A maintenance pass is merging duplicate entries and tidying the encyclopedia. The page reloads itself every 30 seconds.
• "We'll be right back." The site can't reach its database. The page reloads itself every 15 seconds.