Elicit or Consensus? Compare the workflow for one research question

You need to answer a research question and hand the result to a colleague. Start with Consensus for a question-led overview, or Elicit Systematic Review when your deliverable must retain explicit screening decisions and extracted fields. This is an editorial starting recommendation from documented workflows; both products overlap in search and synthesis.

What is different in the documented workflow?

Consensus accepts a question with criteria, then lets Pro and Deep responses compare studies or produce a table. Its search filters include year, study design and population. This is a useful route when you first need to understand what the literature says and where it disagrees.

Elicit offers an exploratory Research Agent and a guided Systematic Review. The latter is plan-dependent and focuses on controlled screening and extraction. Its review documentation describes exclusion reasons and supporting passages. That structure matters when a colleague must understand why you retained one paper and excluded another.

Run one small, explicit question

Proposed exercise: “In workplace training for adults, how does immediate feedback compare with delayed feedback for later skill retention?” Before searching, decide that the participants must be employees, the comparison must concern feedback timing, and the outcome must measure retained skill rather than satisfaction alone.

In Consensus, ask for a table using those criteria and inspect the papers behind it. In Elicit, choose a review workflow if you need recorded inclusion decisions, then use the same criteria for screening and extraction. Do not silently change the question to fit the first results. A study of schoolchildren would fail this exercise's participant criterion even if its title looked relevant.

Save a result someone else can inspect

Use this output structure for each real paper: title or DOI | participants | feedback timing | retention measure | finding with supporting passage | inclusion decision and reason. Empty information stays “not reported”; it does not become “no effect.”

Consensus's Study Snapshot can help inspect study attributes, but its missing fields may reflect an incomplete abstract. Open the full paper before interpreting a gap. In either product, check that an extracted result concerns the right participants, outcome and comparison.

Before choosing Elicit for a handoff, check its export guide: report downloads and table exports have different access conditions. Choose according to the evidence trail and reusable output your assignment needs. This small exercise can reveal workflow friction; it cannot establish an overall accuracy winner or replace a complete literature-review protocol.