Research tools
Directed Inquiry guides.directed-inquiry.hero.title_accent
Ask one real question of a chosen set of sources and get a full working answer back — themes, supporting quotes, the gaps in the evidence, and leads worth chasing beyond your library. All of it cited.
When to reach for it
When you have a specific research question and a set of sources you think can answer it, and you want a structured investigation rather than a quick lookup. Semantic search finds passages; the Assistant chats; inquiry does the fuller job — it takes your question seriously enough to return themes, evidence, and an honest account of what your sources can't answer.
Pose the question and pick the sources
Write a real research question — a sentence or two, not a keyword — and choose the materials it should investigate. This is a directed inquiry: you're aiming the analysis at specific sources and a specific problem, so the more precisely you frame the question, the more useful everything that comes back.
Framing an inquiry over selected sources
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A question with a verb in it — "how did", "why does", "to what extent" — gets a far richer answer than a noun phrase.
Get themes backed by quotes
The inquiry returns the themes that answer your question, each grounded in exact quotes from your sources with citations back to the material. You're not handed a floating summary you have to trust — you're handed an argument with its evidence attached, ready to verify and to build on.
Themes with supporting quotes and citations
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See where your sources fall short
It also tells you what your chosen sources can't answer — the parts of your question the evidence doesn't reach. This honesty is the point: knowing the limit of what you can currently claim is what keeps a research argument defensible, and it tells you exactly what to go find next.
Gaps the current sources don't cover
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Follow the outside leads
Finally, it suggests recommendations beyond your current library — directions, sources, or angles worth pursuing to take the question further. Grounded in what you have, pointing at what you don't: it's the difference between an answer and a research plan.
External recommendations for further research
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What it will — and won’t — do
It runs a genuine, cited investigation of your question against your sources and is honest about the edges of what they can answer. It won't manufacture certainty your evidence doesn't support — the gaps and the outside leads are there precisely because it isn't pretending your library is complete. It gets you a rigorous first pass; the judgment about what the answer means stays yours.
An inquiry costs roughly 4,000 tokens — a few cents for a structured, cited answer to a question you’d otherwise chase across every source by hand.
What comes next
Related research tools
Insight Extraction
4 minMap the argument inside a source — claims, evidence, and counter-positions — not a summary
Research Synthesis
5 minGenerate structured data matrices across multiple sources — exportable to CSV/JSON
Gap Analysis
5 minFind what's missing — the perspectives, periods, and places your research isn't covering yet
Ask a question
worth answering.
Point a real research question at your sources and get a cited investigation back. Free to start.
Try it free