How to Write an Academic Paper with Lattics: An End-to-End Workflow from Topic to References

Compared with tools like Word and Typora that mainly provide a “blank page” for writing, Lattics is not positioned as a simple editor from the beginning. Instead, it is designed as a brain-like knowledge management + writing environment tailored for the full academic writing lifecycle[1][2][3]. Below is a step-by-step guide showing how to use Lattics to write an academic paper. In each stage, we also compare it with traditional tools to highlight the advantages.

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1. Start from topic ideation: build your “problem space” with cards and graphs

1) Use Projects + Card Library to create a research workspace

Create a new Lattics project and treat it as the “research space” for your paper (or even your entire topic):

• Project: a topic / a paper / a research direction
• Card Library: capture ideas, concepts, literature excerpts, and question lists
• Articles: draft your final outputs (proposal, literature review, first draft, etc.)

Suggested workflow:

1. Create a new project. Before writing the main text, set up a few basic categories in the Card Library, for example:
   • Topic ideas
   • Research questions & hypotheses
   • Method directions
   • Key references
2. Whenever you have a quick thought (e.g., “Could we discuss privacy from a federated learning perspective?”), immediately record it as a card, instead of letting it scatter across multiple .docx or .md files.

2) Use graphs (mind map / storyboard / overview) to clarify directions

Lattics provides three graph views—mind map, storyboard, and overview—to visualize articles, cards, and document nodes in a project[1][3]:

• In the mind map view:
  • Write your rough topic as the central node, such as “AI ethics and algorithmic decision-making”
  • Add child nodes like “data privacy,” “algorithmic bias,” “interpretability,” “accountability,” etc.
  • Drag existing related cards (ideas, notes) under the right nodes to form a “problem forest”
• In the overview view:
  • Observe which branches are information-rich and which are still empty
  • This directly indicates which directions have more research potential and are easier to develop into a paper

Compared with traditional tools:

• Word/Typora: you start from a blank document and can only write a linear outline; it’s hard to see “information density” and relationships across directions.
• Lattics: you “see the whole before writing,” building a visual “problem–literature–idea” network that is closer to how the brain actually works.

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2. Import PDFs: fully integrate reading into the writing system

1) Import PDFs into the project outline

In the project outline, simply drag and drop PDFs into the project[2][3]. Each PDF becomes a document node:

• Group PDFs as “core papers,” “background reading,” “methods,” etc.
• Or create a dedicated “Literature Library” branch in the outline to manage all PDFs

2) Use PDF translation and OCR

Lattics is optimized for academic reading[1][2][3]:

• Side-by-side PDF translation: Open an English paper in Lattics and click “Translate” to enter a two-column bilingual view:
  • Left: the original PDF with layout, figures, formulas preserved
  • Right: the machine translation
• OCR:
  • For scanned PDFs or papers with many formulas/tables, Lattics can extract copyable text, tables, and even LaTeX formulas[2][3]

Compared with traditional tools:

• Word: barely handles PDFs directly; you often rely on Adobe Reader + translation sites/plugins, which breaks the flow.
• Typora: focuses on Markdown editing; reading/translation happens outside the system.
• Lattics: reading, translation, and extraction happen inside the same project space.

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3. Extract and translate from PDFs in Lattics: turn highlights into reusable material

1) Highlight = Card: extraction becomes structured knowledge

While reading a PDF in Lattics, you can:

• Select a passage or a figure/table
• Click “Highlight + Create Card”
• Lattics generates a card with:
  • The excerpt (Chinese/English)
  • The source PDF
  • Page number and location
  • A link to jump back to the original context

On each card, you can also:

• Add your interpretation (like literature notes)
• Add tags such as “method,” “results,” “framework,” “question,” “counter-argument,” etc.
• Put it into card groups for later retrieval

2) Extract translated content

With the bilingual view, you can choose:

• Extract the translated Chinese into cards (useful for writing in Chinese)
• Or keep the English original + add your own notes (useful for bilingual work)

Compared with traditional tools:

• Word/Typora workflows often look like:
  1. Screenshot/copy from PDF
  2. Manually annotate “This is from XXX, 2023, p.12”
  3. Avoid large-scale extraction because maintaining sources is expensive
• Lattics lets you extract confidently because:
  • Each excerpt automatically carries source metadata
  • Everything lives in the card library and can be reused via drag-and-drop
  • You avoid the common embarrassment of “Where did I copy this from?”

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4. Use mind maps and outlines to design and iterate your structure

1) Build structure starting from cards

Once you have enough cards (excerpts + ideas + questions):

1. Open the mind map view:
   • Use your paper title or core research question as the central node
   • Drag relevant cards under topic nodes
2. Gradually form sections like:
   • Background & significance
   • Theory & methods
   • Results & discussion
   • Conclusion & future work

2) Two-way sync between graph and outline

Lattics graphs can be linked with the project outline[1][3]:

• Right-click a node → “Generate Article” or “Add to Outline”
• Or adjust the outline, and the graph reflects structure changes in real time

This means your structural edits are no longer “moving paragraphs around in Word,” but editing under a dual view: visual structure + linear outline.

Compared with traditional tools:

• Word: outline view only shows a list of headings; it’s hard to sense relationships or information density.
• Typora: has TOC, but still a single linear text.
• Lattics: treats structure as an editable graph; outline is a linear projection.

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5. Keep iterating: new PDFs → new cards → small structure adjustments

Real academic writing is almost never “finish reading then start writing.” Lattics supports the reality of reading and writing in parallel:

1. Import new PDFs into your “Literature Library”
2. Highlight/extract to generate cards
3. Attach new cards to existing sections in the graph/outline

This is hard to do in Word/Typora because materials are paragraph-based and scattered across files. Lattics’ core advantage is that materials (cards) and structure (outline/graph) are separate but linked, so you can reorganize endlessly without losing sources.

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6. Start drafting: drag cards into your article and build arguments

1) From blank page to structured draft

Create a “Main Draft” article in your project:

• Open outline or card library on the left
• Add section headings based on your designed structure

Then, instead of forcing yourself to write from zero:

• Select a section (e.g., “2.1 Related Work: Algorithmic Bias”)
• Search cards by tag/keyword
• Drag cards into the draft:
  • As quote blocks (with citation marks)
  • Or as plain text to rewrite

2) Use “@” to insert references

In Lattics, type “@” to search and reference:

• A card (excerpt, note)
• An article
• A PDF document

You can insert it as a link, a reference block, or an embed. For academic writing, “reference-type cards” are especially useful:

• Inline citation marks appear in your text
• They link to the bibliography block automatically

This changes your workflow:

• Not “writing and trying to remember where the evidence was”
• But assembling an argument from a material library like building blocks

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7. Add a bibliography block: generate and update references in one click

1) Insert a bibliography block

When the draft is mature enough:

1. At the end of the article, type /
2. Insert “Bibliography” block[4]
3. Lattics scans the whole article to find:
   • All referenced cards
   • Directly referenced PDFs/literature items
4. It generates a bibliography list automatically (ordering, punctuation, author formatting, journal info, volume/issue/pages, etc.)

2) Switch CSL styles with one click

Lattics includes common CSL styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, GB/T 7714, etc.) and supports importing more[4][5][6]:

• Select a target style (Nature, IEEE, CNKI formats, etc.)
• Both the bibliography and in-text citations update automatically

This solves a classic pain point: “We’re submitting to another journal” no longer means reformatting everything by hand.

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8. Why Lattics has a major advantage over Word/Typora

The key is not “more features,” but a change in cognitive workflow.

1) Tooling: All-in-One rather than a toolchain

Stage	Typical Word/Typora setup	Lattics
Reading & translation	PDF reader + translation tools	In-project reading, translation, OCR
Highlight & notes	Highlight + manual copy/paste	Highlight = card, source auto-attached
Structuring	External mind map + Word outline	Built-in graph views + outline sync
Material reuse	Scattered docs and screenshots	Unified card library + search + links
Citations & bibliography	Manual / plugins	Built-in generation + CSL switching
Export	Word → PDF	Lattics → PDF / Docx / more

2) Thinking: from “write then search” to “build knowledge then output”

• In Word/Typora:
  • Writing often means searching and recalling evidence while drafting.
• In Lattics:
  • Writing becomes assembling arguments from a curated card network.

The result:

• Literature becomes your reusable knowledge, not a pile of PDFs.
• Revising, expanding, or switching target journals becomes easier because you reorganize structure rather than rebuilding materials.

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9. A minimal practical workflow you can start today

1. Create a project (name it after your topic)
2. Import 5–10 core PDFs
3. Extract 5–15 cards per paper
4. Build a rough structure in the graph
5. Create the main draft and start from cards
6. Insert bibliography block and pick CSL style
7. Export and iterate as needed

Once you finish this loop once, you’ll likely never want to go back to “Word + scattered PDFs + hand-maintained outlines.”

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References

[1] Lattics - Brain-like Knowledge Management & Creative Writing. https://lattics.com

[2] Lattics Product Overview (PDF translation, mind maps, citations, etc.). https://lattics.zineapi.com

[3] A review article about Lattics (workflow & features). https://www.51cto.com/article/753254.html

[4] Bibliography (Lattics help docs: bibliography block and CSL switching). https://helps.auramarker.com/lattics/bibliography

[5] Research workflow article (All-in-one reading, management & writing). https://aixielunwen.com/10713.html

[6] Lattics overview post (mentions bibliography & CSL). https://post.smzdm.com/p/amvx05gv