Referenta

Research

A workspace for an ongoing investigation. Keep your sources, notes, and questions together as your understanding evolves.

Research is for the deeper kind of finding — the work that takes more than one sitting and benefits from a place to come back to.

Where Knowledgebase is a library (find a document, leave again), Research is a workspace (keep building up your understanding of a topic over time).

What It's Good For

  • Multi-day investigations on a topic you'll keep returning to.
  • Synthesizing sources as you gather them, instead of all at once.
  • Building enough context to write something substantial — a long-form paper, a strategy document, a sustained position.
  • Keeping a thread across many small sessions instead of restarting each time.

A Typical Flow

Scenario: your minister has asked for a position on AI regulation. You'll be working on it for two weeks.

  1. Open Research from Analysis & Research.
  2. Start a workspace for the topic ("AI regulation — minister briefing").
  3. Add sources as you find them — official documents from Knowledgebase, articles you spot in Press Monitor, your own uploads, notes from conversations.
  4. Come back over days or weeks. The workspace remembers what you've gathered, what you've considered, and where you stopped.
  5. Move into drafting in the Assistant once your understanding is solid enough to commit to a position.

When To Use Research Over Knowledgebase

Use Knowledgebase when you need to find a specific thing quickly and leave.

Use Research when:

  • You'll be working on the same question over multiple sessions.
  • The set of relevant material will grow over time.
  • You want to keep notes and context together, not just bookmarks.

A Good Habit

Name the workspace clearly. "AI regulation — minister briefing — June" is much easier to find again in two weeks than "AI stuff".

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