This is a practical, start-to-finish guide to writing an academic paper in Folio. No theory, no philosophy — just the workflow, with each feature explained where it becomes useful.
We'll follow the process of writing a short research paper on political communication and social media, but the workflow applies to any topic.
Step 1: Create a document
From the Dashboard, click Blank document or Research & Start (if you want Folio's Cold Start to generate thesis angles and find sources for you).
For this walkthrough, we'll start blank. Give your document a title — something specific. "Social Media and Political Polarization Among Young Voters" is better than "Social Media Paper."
The title shows up in your dashboard, in exports, and in the submission checklist. It matters.
Step 2: Build your source library
Before writing a word, add your sources. Open the Sources panel from the activity bar (the vertical icon strip on the right edge of the editor) and click + Add.
You have five ways to add a source:
- URL — paste a link to a journal article, preprint, or webpage. Folio extracts the title, authors, year, journal, and abstract automatically. Works with arXiv, PubMed, JSTOR, Springer, Wiley, ScienceDirect, and most academic publishers.
- DOI — paste a DOI (like
10.1000/xyz123) and Folio pulls the metadata from CrossRef. - ISBN — for books.
- Manual — fill in the fields yourself for sources that don't have a URL.
- PDF — upload a PDF and Folio extracts both the citation metadata and the full text. Full-text sources power Scholar AI's question-answering and enable semantic citation suggestions.
Add at least 5-8 sources before you start writing. The more sources in your library, the better Folio's citation suggestions and Scholar AI become.
Tip: Sources with full text (uploaded as PDF) are marked with a green FT badge. These are the most valuable — Scholar can answer questions about their content, and Folio can suggest them inline when your writing matches their subject matter.
Step 3: Set your citation style
In the formatting ribbon at the top of the editor, you'll see a dropdown with your citation style — APA 7 by default. Switch it to whatever your assignment requires. Folio supports:
- APA 7th Edition
- MLA 9th Edition
- Chicago 17th Edition (Author-Date)
- IEEE
- Harvard
- Vancouver
When you switch styles, Folio rewrites every in-text citation in your document to match the new format. The reference list at the bottom updates automatically.
Step 4: Write — and let Folio suggest citations
Start writing. As you type, two things happen in the background:
Inline citation autocomplete — when you type an author's last name that matches a source in your library, Folio shows a ghost-text completion. For example, typing Sund might show the ghost text stein (2017) if you have a Sundstein 2017 source. Press Tab to accept.
This also works inside parentheses: typing (Sund shows stein, 2017) and Tab completes the full parenthetical citation.
Semantic citation suggestions — when you write a sentence that makes a claim supported by one of your sources (especially those with full text), Folio shows a faint purple ghost citation at the end of the sentence. Press Tab to insert it. This is powered by embedding similarity + AI ranking against your library.
Both features respect your citation style. APA gives you (Author, Year), MLA gives you (Author), Chicago gives you (Author Year), and so on.
Step 5: Use the formatting toolbar
The ribbon has everything you need:
- Font and size — pick from serif, sans-serif, Arabic, Hebrew, and monospace fonts. Sizes from 10px to 48px.
- Formatting — Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, Superscript, Subscript, Highlight.
- Headings — H1, H2, H3 for document structure.
- Lists — bullet, numbered, and blockquote.
- Insert — table (inserts a 3-column table directly), horizontal rule, and footnotes.
- Alignment — left, center, right, justify.
- Direction — LTR/RTL toggle for multilingual writing.
The toolbar buttons are reactive — they highlight when your cursor is inside formatted text. Click Bold, and the B button turns violet. Move your cursor to non-bold text, and it goes back to gray.
Step 6: Insert figures and tables
Click the table icon in the toolbar to insert a table directly. Or open the Artifacts panel from the activity bar to upload images as auto-numbered figures.
Both figures and tables get:
- Auto-numbering (Figure 1, Table 1, etc.)
- Captions with adjustable size (11-17px)
- Caption positioning (above or below)
- Floating toolbar on hover for quick adjustments
Tables also have column/row controls, header row toggle, and delete — all from the floating toolbar.
Step 7: Check your citations
Open the Citations panel from the activity bar. Click Recheck to run the citation accuracy checker. Folio scans your document and cross-references every in-text citation against your source library, checking for:
- Year mismatches — you wrote (Smith, 2019) but your library has Smith 2020
- Orphaned citations — a citation in the text that doesn't match any source
- Name mismatches — author name spelled differently in text vs. library
- Unused sources — sources in your library that you never cited
- Heavy use — the same source cited 5+ times (consider varying sources)
Each issue has a severity (critical, warning, note) and a suggestion for how to fix it.
Step 8: Proofread
Open the Proofread panel and click Run proofreading. Folio's AI reviews your writing for:
- Grammar errors
- Spelling mistakes
- Academic tone issues (colloquialisms, passive voice overuse, weak hedging)
- Consistency problems (same concept referred to by different names)
- Clarity issues (overly complex sentences, ambiguous pronouns)
You get a readability score (0-100), a list of strengths, and expandable issues with specific suggestions.
Step 9: Run the Document Audit
For a deeper check, open the Audit panel. This is a comprehensive review that checks:
- Citation accuracy
- Document structure (headings, intro, conclusion, references section)
- Academic tone
- Completeness
- Consistency
You can upload your course syllabus or paste paper instructions before running the audit — Folio calibrates its feedback to your specific assignment requirements.
The audit gives you a score, a letter grade estimate, and Scholar feedback with strengths, improvements, and rubric-aligned suggestions.
Step 10: Pre-export checklist and export
Before exporting, click Export → Pre-export Check. This runs a quick client-side audit:
- Word count target met?
- All sources cited?
- Document has headings, intro, conclusion?
- Figures and tables captioned?
- Title not still "Untitled"?
- Deadline approaching?
Each check shows pass/warn/fail. When you're satisfied, click Export and choose:
- PDF — formatted, ready to submit
- DOCX — for Word, Google Docs, or Turnitin
- BibTeX — your bibliography for LaTeX workflows
- RIS — for other reference managers
Your reference list is included automatically, formatted in your selected citation style.
That's it
The whole process — from first source to final export — happens inside one tool. No switching between a citation manager, a word processor, a grammar checker, and an AI chatbot. Folio puts them in the same place because they're all part of the same process: turning research into writing.
Folio is free to start with the Scholar plan. Create your first document.