How Scholar GPT Works: Custom GPT Searches for More Up-to-Date Information Deep Research

Despite its many advantages, ChatGPT's Deep Research tool has some major drawbacks. One of the biggest drawbacks is that it's difficult to find up-to-date information, which makes learning more time-consuming. Scholar GPT, a custom GPT, can help you solve this problem.

Search recent information

When I first started using ChatGPT Deep Research, I tested it across multiple categories. While it excelled in many categories (compared to Copilot's equivalent), it struggled to find up-to-date information. Most of the time, I had trouble finding any relevant information that was more than two years old. This defeated the purpose of using the tool.

Scholar GPT is much better at finding recent information. When you search for recent research, you get a comprehensive list of information, with links to the original sources. This makes it very easy to sort through.

In some cases, you'll get a list of key points without links to the original document. However, you may find links to useful online sources as you scroll down. Scholar GPT's table view presents everything in an easy-to-understand format.

Read research papers

In addition to finding relevant and timely information, Scholar GPT can also read research papers and summarize their findings. This is useful for short papers because it can provide a handy summary, meaning you'll have less trouble extracting the most important details from whatever you're reading.

More comprehensive PDFs are also useful for reading and analyzing research . After you upload your paper, Scholar GPT provides a quick summary. In addition to the main findings, the tool seeks to provide a balanced approach and asks whether correlation equals causation.

After you've done your initial research, Scholar GPT gives you the opportunity to dig deeper. For example, you can use a custom GPT to develop a mind map to explain things in simpler terms or compare your results with other studies on the same topic. You can do this for each document you want to study and synthesize your ideas later for more effective learning.

Note: Consider using Scholar GPT with ChatGPT tasks to enhance your learning.

Link Rating

People often like to upload files to ChatGPT because it used to have trouble reading links. Scholar GPT does a great job of this, however. Before uploading a link, you can add a disclaimer to the chat stating that you will be sharing the link.

Scholar GPT will then ask you if you want to explore specific topics, and if so, specify them. Doing so means you can get more accurate feedback and not worry about having to revise everything later.

After you upload your link, Scholar GPT will review and read the page or document. It will then provide an overview of the most important concepts to explore. Everything is presented clearly, and you can ask follow-up questions if you need more information.

When asking Scholar GPT to evaluate links, you should ask it to critically analyze and consider multiple perspectives. Doing so will help you be more balanced and make your learning more rational, especially if the article seems biased.

Support with specific study tips

In addition to reading research papers, Scholar GPT can help you study more effectively in general. For example, you can use it to learn more about specific ways to improve your learning. One of the initial suggestions is that you can ask the chatbot:

'Type 'LS' to list my built-in critical reading skills'.

Rough translation : "Enter "LS" to list my integrated critical reading skills."

From here, Scholar GPT's initial response will provide you with some critical reading strategies to consider. You'll also see a brief description of each item. Next, you can ask Scholar GPT questions like:

'Can you help me learn more about [number]?'

Translation : "Can you help me learn more about [number]?".

From here, GPT provides a more comprehensive overview. Additionally, you can complete practice exercises. This is one of the best ways to use ChatGPT in school.

Building a research strategy

While you can copy popular frameworks when learning, not all of them will work for you. Therefore, you need to be more strategic and figure out the best way to maximize your potential. Scholar GPT can help you do this. To do this, type in the prompt:

'Can you list some of the [number] most common research strategies with a quick description for each?'

Can you list some of the most common research strategies with a brief description of each?

Scholar GPT will then provide a list. From here, you can ask the tool to help you develop a specific strategy. You will get a comprehensive overview to use and customize as needed.

Is School GPT a complete Deep Research alternative?

Scholar GPT has a lot of useful features and is great for finding the latest research. Furthermore, you can use this tool to develop comprehensive strategies to help you move forward in your studies.

For academic research, Scholar GPT is much better than Deep Research. It is better at finding precise information and is also much faster. However, many people will still use ChatGPT Deep Research if not for studying, because while Scholar GPT is better at reading research papers, Deep Research excels at finding shopping recommendations and everyday findings.

Micah Soto

Update 15 July 2025