# Citation Constellation

Citation Constellation is an interactive way to see how a paper sits in the wider literature. Instead of a flat reference list, it draws the connections between papers as a navigable graph, a starfield you can move through, following what a paper cites and what cites it.

It is built for the moment you have one paper and a question that reaches past it: "What did this build on?" and "Who has taken this further?"

## Starting from a DOI

1. Open **Citation Constellation** from **Citations**.
2. Enter a **DOI** to place a paper at the center of the graph.
3. The paper appears as a node, with its immediate connections around it.

## Exploring relationships

From any paper in the graph, you can move outward along two kinds of links:

- **References** - the papers this work cites, the ground it built on.
- **Citations** - the papers that cite this work, where the idea travelled next.

Click a connected paper to bring it into focus and reveal its own neighbours. Each step opens the graph a little further, so you can trace a line of thinking backward through its sources or forward through its influence.

## Search

Use **search** to jump to a specific paper rather than clicking your way there. This is useful when you already know a title or author you want to reach and would rather land on it directly.

## Your exploration trail

As you move from paper to paper, Citation Constellation keeps an **exploration trail**: a record of the path you have taken through the graph. The trail lets you see where you have been and step back to an earlier paper without losing your place, so a long exploration stays legible instead of turning into a tangle.

## Exporting

When a paper in the graph is worth keeping, you can bring it into your reference library. See [Managing Citations](/docs/v1.x/managing-citations) for how citations are stored, edited, and exported from your library.

## Next steps

- **[Manage your citations](/docs/v1.x/managing-citations)** - Keep the papers you find in your reference library.
- **[Format citations with styles](/docs/v1.x/citation-styles)** - Apply APA, MLA, Chicago, and more.