> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.consensus.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Research terms dictionary

> A short glossary of the research words you'll see in Consensus and in papers, from corpus and preprint to meta-analysis and effect size.

Keep this page open while you work through the guide. Terms are grouped by when you'll first meet them.

## Finding papers

| Term | What it means |
| - | - |
| **Corpus** | The set of papers being searched. In Consensus: All, Medical, or My Library, chosen under **+** › **Search corpus**. |
| **Peer review** | Other experts checked the paper before the journal published it. |
| **Preprint** | A paper shared publicly before peer review. Useful for new results, but not yet checked. |
| **Abstract** | The short summary at the top of a paper. |
| **Full text** | The whole paper: introduction, methods, results, and discussion. |
| **DOI** | A permanent ID for a paper, like `10.1000/182`. Paste it into Consensus to find that exact paper. |
| **Citation count** | How many other papers cite this one. A rough sign of influence, not of quality. |
| **Seminal paper** | A foundational paper that much of a field builds on. |
| **Journal quartile (Q1–Q4)** | A journal's rank within its field. Q1 means the top 25%. |
| **Retracted** | Withdrawn after publication, usually because of errors or misconduct. Don't cite it. |

## Study types

| Term | What it means |
| - | - |
| **RCT (randomized controlled trial)** | People are randomly put into a treatment group or a comparison group. The strongest single study for cause and effect. |
| **Cohort study** | Follows a group over time to see who develops an outcome. |
| **Case-control study** | Compares people who have an outcome with people who don't, looking back for causes. |
| **Cross-sectional study** | A snapshot of a group at one point in time. |
| **Case study / case report** | A detailed look at one person, group, or event. |
| **Literature review** | A summary of research on a topic, written by an expert. |
| **Systematic review** | A review that follows a strict, repeatable method to find and judge every relevant study. |
| **Meta-analysis** | Combines the numbers from many studies into one overall result. |

## Reading results

| Term | What it means |
| - | - |
| **Population** | Who was studied, such as adults with type 2 diabetes. |
| **Intervention** | The treatment or exposure being tested. |
| **Outcome** | What was measured to judge the result. |
| **Sample size (n)** | How many people or things were studied. Bigger is usually more reliable. |
| **Effect size** | How big the difference or relationship is, not just whether one exists. |
| **Statistically significant** | Unlikely to be due to chance alone. It doesn't mean the effect is large or important. |
| **Correlation vs causation** | Two things happening together (correlation) doesn't prove one causes the other (causation). |
| **Confounder** | A third factor that could explain a result, such as age or income. |
| **Limitation** | A weakness the authors admit, usually near the end of the discussion. |

## Doing research

| Term | What it means |
| - | - |
| **Literature review** (the task) | Reading and summarizing what's known about your topic, usually the first step of a project. |
| **Research gap** | A question the research hasn't answered yet. |
| **Backward citation tracing** | Reading the papers a paper cites, to see what it built on. |
| **Forward citation tracing** | Reading the papers that cite a paper, to see what came after. |
| **Snowballing** | Repeating citation tracing from paper to paper to build a reading list. |
| **PICO** | A way to frame a question: Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome. |


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