TL;DR:
An assistant can read several pages and line up what each says about the same question.
Keep a note of which source said what. A summary without sources cannot be checked.
Verify the key claims on the original page before you rely on them.
You have eight tabs open for one question and you have lost track of which tab said what. The work is tedious but important: collect claims, compare them, note where they agree and where they conflict. An assistant can do some of the bookkeeping, as long as you do the judging.
The short answer
Open the pages you want to compare, ask the assistant to read them one at a time, and have it write what each says about your question in a short note with the source named. Then ask it to line up the notes and flag disagreements. You check the flagged points on the original pages.
What happens step by step
Define the question. One sentence. "Did the number of cyclists on Mill Street go up after the new lane?"
Show one page at a time. The assistant sees the tab that is on screen, so you move through the tabs.
Collect claims with sources. For each page: the claim, the evidence offered and the date or author if visible.
Compare. Where do the pages agree? Where do they differ, and is it a real conflict or a different way of counting?
Verify. Open the original page for any claim that matters and read the sentence yourself.
Walk-through: comparing three articles
Here is a made-up example, with invented articles, to show the method. The question: did cycling on a town street rise after a bike lane opened?
Source | What it says | Evidence given |
|---|---|---|
Article A | Daily cyclists rose from 200 to 260 | Counts on two weekdays |
Article B | Cycling is "up about | Starts from "about 200" a day |
Article C | Cyclists "up by 60 a day" | No starting figure given |
At first glance the three look different. Do the arithmetic. From 200 to 260 is an increase of 60. As a share of 200, that is 60 ÷ 200 = 0.30, which is 30%. So A, B and C are all consistent: they describe the same change in different words, as a count, a percentage and a difference.
The note the assistant keeps for you might read: "Agreement: +60 per day, about 30%, from about 200. Weakness: A counted only two weekdays. C gave no starting number." That is a real finding, and a helpful flag: a two-day count is thin evidence about a whole season.
Ask for the weakness, not only the claim: For each page ask: "How do they know this?" A claim with a clear method is worth more than a confident sentence with none.
Summaries you verify
A summary is somebody's compression of the page, and compression loses detail. Before you quote or rely on a number, find it on the source page. If the assistant gives a quotation, search the page for the exact words. If you cannot find them, do not use the quote.
Also check the source itself. Is it the original report or a blog repeating it? Who published it, and when? Keeping the sources next to every claim in your notes makes citing later much easier.
Keeping notes you can use later
Good notes record the claim, the source and how sure you are. A simple format is one line per claim: the claim in your own words, the page it came from and a mark for whether you checked it on the original. Later, when you write up your findings, the marks tell you which claims are safe to use.
Ask the assistant to keep the notes in that format as you go, and to say when a page does not answer your question. A page that does not help is also a finding, because it saves the next reader the trip.
Finally, cite the original. If a news story reports on a study, go to the study. A chain of reports can distort a number a little at each step, and only the source can settle it.
What it cannot do
It can see only the page that is showing, plus whatever you give it. It does not know what is behind a login or a paywall.
It can merge two pages into one claim and lose which page said which.
It can state things that are on no page at all. Always make it name where each claim came from.
It cannot decide which source you should trust. That judgement is yours.
Privacy and control
Many tabs means many private things: mail, chats, documents. When an assistant reads your screen it may see those too. Before a research session, close tabs you do not want read or use a separate window just for research.
DuckyHelper looks only while the pill is open and for that answer. Having it do the clicking for you across tabs is early access, and it's built to ask first before it sends or pays for anything.
Try it yourself
Pick a question with three good pages. Write one-line notes for each with the source, compare them, and check the one number that matters on the original page.
Frequently asked questions
How many pages can I compare?
Three to five is manageable. Past that, keep a running note and compare in groups.
What if the pages really disagree?
Say so in your notes. Look at how each counted, when, and who funded or wrote it, and report the disagreement honestly.
Get started
