The workflow, in plain English
Before: You’re reading a neuroscience paper outside your sub-field. Every third sentence has a term you don’t know. You highlight, right-click, search, read, switch back. You do this 20 times and lose your reading flow.
After: Domain-specific terms have subtle dotted underlines. Hover over “astrocyte”: “A star-shaped glial cell in the brain that supports neurons. In this paper’s context, the authors are studying how astrocytes modulate synaptic plasticity.” You never left the paper. The definitions are tailored to THIS paper’s usage, not generic dictionary entries.
Why traditional tools can’t: Dictionary extensions give generic definitions. Dassi gives contextual definitions based on how the term is actually used in the document you’re reading.
Step-by-step
- Open the paper (PDF viewer, arXiv, journal site).
- Ask dassi to annotate domain terms with contextual definitions.
- As you read, expand definitions only when needed.
- Export a glossary + summary for later study.
Example prompts to try
- “Define the key terms in this paper in context, inline.”
- “Build a glossary of the top 15 terms used here.”
- “Explain the main contribution in plain language.”
Tips for better results
- Be specific about what you want injected into the page (buttons, filters, a panel, a summary, etc.).
- If the page has multiple sections, tell dassi exactly what to focus on (e.g., “the transactions table” or “the diff for file X”).
- Prefer safe workflows first: draft, summarize, label, and prepare — then take actions (submit, purchase) only after review.