- Enter your topic. Be as specific as you can. “Acid–base balance and arterial blood gas interpretation” gives a sharper overview than “acid–base”. Add the unit or course title if you have one.
- Say what it’s for. Choose whether you’re teaching it for the first time, refreshing your own understanding, planning a unit or session, or briefing colleagues or tutors. This changes how the overview is pitched.
- Set the discipline, level and depth. Your discipline and the level of your students shape the examples and language. Quick overview gives four or five key concepts, Standard six or seven, and In depth eight to ten, with more misconceptions, debates and readings to match.
- Choose your key readings. Leave Add key readings ticked to include real papers from the research databases, and pick a referencing style. Under More options you can choose how recent they should be, add a particular focus or questions, paste your learning outcomes, and describe your students.
- Explore the topic. Choose “Explore topic”. The key concepts come first, then the misconceptions, debates and teaching angles. It usually takes under a minute, and you’re charged once, when the overview is saved. If something goes wrong partway, you aren’t charged, and “Finish overview” picks up where it stopped.
- Read the overview. It opens with what the topic is, why it matters and what students need first. Then come the key concepts with examples, common misconceptions (why students hold them and how to address them), debates and open questions, real-world connections, teaching angles, discussion questions and a glossary.
- Look at the key readings. They load a few seconds after the overview. Each is a real, published paper found in OpenAlex, Crossref or PubMed, with its full reference, the type of study, a short summary, a note on why it’s worth reading, the concept it relates to, and links to the DOI, PubMed or free full text. Change the referencing style at any time for free. Finding the readings never costs anything, and if the databases can’t be reached you can try again.
- Go deeper on a concept. Choose “Go deeper” under any key concept for a fuller explanation that links it to the others, a worked example, an analogy (and where it breaks down) and two or three questions that check understanding, with model answers. The price is on the button, and you’re only charged once it’s saved.
- Download it. Word gives you the full overview. Student handout is a Word version for students, without the misconceptions, debates, teaching angles or model answers. Print / PDF opens a print-ready page. Copy text copies the whole overview as plain text.
- Build on it. From a finished overview you can find a fuller reading list in the Reference Finder, plan up to three sessions in the Lesson Planner, write learning objectives, or make a concept map of how the key concepts connect. Each is priced on its own button and builds on this overview. Every overview is saved to “My Topic Overviews” and to “Everything You’ve Generated” on your User Hub.
Every action’s credit cost is shown on its own button before you commit to it. Nothing is charged silently.