Three answers before a referee asks.
Before your check runs, I add the papers that cite the same sources you do. That's usually where the paper you missed is hiding.
Is my main claim already published?
If a paper already makes it, you get the paper. If not, you get how yours differs from the closest one.
What am I missing?
Papers a referee will expect you to cite that aren't in your list, with a line on why each one matters. That includes work from other fields and work filed under older names.
Is my reference list clean?
Retracted papers, corrections, preprints that have since been published, and years or DOIs that don't match the record.
Suggested reviewers and alerts for new papers close to your claim are coming in November.
The paper you'd miss because it's called something else.
Fields rename things. What was a “snow survey” in the 1970s is “snow sampling” now, and a keyword search for one won't find the other. The check searches the old names too, and tells you when that's how it found a paper.
Three names, one idea.
"Snow survey", "snow sampling" and "snow pit sampling" were written decades apart about the same fieldwork. The check treats them as one, so you see the papers that don't share your wording.
A straight answer, with the paper.
The check reads your abstract as one claim and compares it with the closest papers we hold. Claimed means a paper already makes it, and you get that paper. Adjacent tells you what the nearest work did and where yours is different. Open means we didn't find it.
Claimed isn't a rejection. If you're replicating, it's the paper to match. If you're extending, it's the one to cite and build on.
Nothing is made up. If the check can't point to a real paper, it doesn't make the claim, and every paper links to its source so you can check it in a minute.
The paper a referee would bring up, before they do.
For each paper you're missing you get two lines: why a referee would expect it, and how your paper differs. You can download them all as BibTeX or RIS.
A reviewer will note this paper already established pteropod shell dissolution as an ocean-acidification bioindicator in the Southern Ocean, so your contribution cannot rest on the observation alone.
Their measurements were on collected specimens; yours is an in-situ seasonal time series, which resolves a signal their snapshot could not. Cite it as the baseline you extend.
Check it before you submit.
Your first check is free and shows you the headline results. The full check is $19 per paper.
Your paper isn't used to train models. It runs your check and helps me improve it, nothing else. Read the privacy note.