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Up and running in 5 minutes

1. Set up a few accounts (one-time, easy)
2. Download the plugin file from GitHub
3. Drag the file into Claude, click "Save plugin"
4. Create a folder for your paper
5. Tell Claude: "I want to write a [term/bachelor/master's] paper on [topic]."

Claude takes it from there.

What you'll need

1) Create accounts

You need three core tools (Claude, NotebookLM, Gemini). Perplexity and Obsidian are optional. All of them have a free version. If you want to really push through, the Pro versions pay off.

Tool	Link	What for
Claude	claude.ai	The AI that runs everything. Download the Desktop app and turn on Cowork Mode (needs Pro).
Perplexity	perplexity.ai	Optional. Scouts real sources up front — with links you can actually verify. You then import the best ones into NotebookLM.
NotebookLM	notebooklm.google.com	Where you upload all the PDFs you want to cite.
Gemini	gemini.google.com/app	Reads your sources and summarises them.
Obsidian	obsidian.md	Optional. Gives you a clean overview of all your files. Like a local Notion.

I personally pay for Claude Max (€200), NotebookLM Pro (€20), optionally Perplexity Pro (€20). Gemini is free.

2) Install the skills

Three ways. Option A is the easiest — pick this if you don't want to deal with setup.

Option A: One click (recommended)

1. Download the file
2. Open Claude Desktop. Turn on Cowork Mode: profile → Settings → Beta Features → Cowork Mode on
3. Drag the file you just downloaded into the Claude chat
4. Claude shows a preview. Click "Save plugin"

Done. Claude now has all 8 steps loaded as skills.

Option B: Just one skill

Like Option A, but instead of a plugin with many skills you get a single skill. Same result, just leaner. Download, drag into Claude, click "Save skill".

Option C: For the techy folks

If you're into Obsidian or you already use git:

git clone https://github.com/e3xler/studienarbeit.git

Or grab the ZIP and unzip it. Then in Claude pick the folder as the Cowork folder. Claude detects everything automatically.

3) Create a folder for your paper

You need a folder on your Mac (or PC) where your paper lives. That's where chapters, sources, and the final Word file will end up.

With Option A or B: Just make an empty folder, e.g. Term-Paper in your Documents. Claude builds the rest later.

With Option C: The cloned studienarbeit folder is already your working folder. Nothing more to do.

4) Open Obsidian (or skip)

Obsidian is like OneNote or Notion, but local on your computer. Makes it easier to search through your texts and sources.

1. Open Obsidian
2. "Open vault" → pick your paper folder
3. You see all files in a clean overview

If you don't want yet another tool, skip it. The pipeline works without.

5) Get going

1. Open Claude Desktop, Cowork Mode on
2. Select folder → pick your paper folder
3. Write one of these to Claude:

• "I want to write a term paper on [topic]."
• "I want to write a bachelor thesis on [topic]."
• "I want to write a master's thesis on [topic]."
• /start (only if you picked Option A)

In the first step Claude asks you for paper type, university, subject, citation style, page count, and whether you'll do empirical work (interviews, surveys). It handles the rest.

Which paper you're writing

The pipeline adapts. Depending on your paper type, page count, depth, and the empirical strand change.

Type	Pages	Empirical	What's expected
Term paper	10–20	no	You gather knowledge and organise it cleanly
Seminar paper	15–25	rarely	You connect sources
Study paper (FH/HS)	20–40	optional	Synthesis, maybe mini-empirical
Bachelor thesis	30–60	recommended	Independent synthesis, often with empirics
Master's thesis	60–100	expected	Your own contribution with solid empirical work

How this works (8 steps)

The AI does this in a fixed order. You don't need to remember what comes when — Claude tells you.

Step 0: Check (studienarbeit-onboarding)

Claude checks if everything's working, then asks you a few things:

• Which paper type? (term/seminar/bachelor/master's)
• Which university? Which subject?
• Which citation style? (Harvard, APA, Chicago, MLA …)
• How many pages?
• When's the deadline?
• Empirical work needed (interviews, surveys)?

Everything lands in a file Claude reads from again and again. Takes 5 minutes.

Step 1: Planning (studienarbeit-planung)

This is the most important part at the start:

• You tell Claude roughly what your paper is about
• Claude helps you turn that into a research question (the one question your paper answers)
• Together you build an outline with page counts — matching the paper type (a term paper needs less theory depth than a master's)
• Claude creates the folders for each chapter
• You make a timeline working backwards from the deadline

By the end you know what you're writing, how much, and by when.

Step 2: Finding sources (studienarbeit-recherche)

Now you need material to cite. Claude tells you what to search for.

• Claude gives you search terms for every chapter
• You open NotebookLM in your browser and search for sources there (Deep Research is the main channel)
• Optional: use Perplexity to scout sources up front — then import the best links into NotebookLM
• You upload PDFs, papers, and links
• Claude keeps track of what you found

If you're doing empirical work, a second strand runs in parallel here: Claude helps you with study design (interview guide, questionnaire, observation protocol) and data collection.

Tip: Peer-reviewed stuff beats some random blog. Claude explains the difference.

Step 3: Reading sources (studienarbeit-quellenauswertung)

Here's the trick: Claude doesn't read your sources — Gemini does. Why? Because Claude would burn way too many tokens (= money) on that. Gemini is cheaper and reads your NotebookLM sources directly.

How you do it (one-time setup, 2 minutes):

1. Claude gives you a system prompt — that's instructions for Gemini
2. Open Gemini, create a new Gem (that's what Gemini calls custom bots) and paste in the instructions
3. Link your NotebookLM to the Gem (click + bottom left in the chat → NotebookLM)
4. For each chapter Claude gives you a ready-to-paste prompt
5. Copy Gemini's answer back to Claude — Claude shapes it into the format that's needed

With empirical work: Claude additionally walks you through coding your interviews or analysing your questionnaire (descriptive stats, simple inferential stats).

Sounds complicated at first. Takes 5 minutes the first time, then it's fast.

Step 4: Writing (studienarbeit-writer)

Now Claude writes your chapters.

• Academic style in the citation system you picked during onboarding (Harvard, APA, …)
• Every paragraph has a clear point with a reason and a source
• If Claude needs a source it doesn't have, it writes [QUELLE ERGÄNZEN] — no made-up sources
• Anti-AI check: Claude deliberately avoids the typical AI phrases so your text doesn't sound like ChatGPT

Order that works: Theory → Method (if empirical) → Results → Discussion → Introduction → Conclusion

(Write intro and conclusion last, because you only really know what's in the paper by then.)

Step 5: Review (studienarbeit-reviewer)

Claude reads your chapter again and pretends to be your professor:

• Is the argument convincing?
• Enough solid sources?
• Language fine?
• Does it have enough substance for the paper type?

You get feedback in three tiers: Must (otherwise it won't fly), Should (better if you change it), Optional (nice-to-have).

Step 6: Revising (studienarbeit-ueberarbeitung)

Claude works the feedback in. Also handles supervisor feedback — just say "My supervisor said: [...]", and Claude rebuilds the chapter around it.

Important: Your voice stays. Claude patches, doesn't rewrite from scratch.

Step 7: Get it submission-ready (studienarbeit-finalisierung)

The final step. Claude:

• Reads the whole paper and checks if everything fits together (narrative arc, terms, transitions)
• Builds the bibliography automatically from all your sources
• Closes leftover markers like [QUELLE ERGÄNZEN] or [SEITE PRÜFEN]
• Makes a .docx file following your university's spec

You get a finished Word file. Open it, refresh the table of contents, submit.

Who does what

Step	What Claude does	What you do
Check	Makes sure everything's ready	Pick paper type + meta info
Planning	Research question, outline, schedule	Describe the topic, answer questions
Finding sources	Gives you search terms (+ study design)	Open NotebookLM, search, upload
Reading sources	Gives you prompts for Gemini	Run prompts in Gemini, paste answers back to Claude
Writing	Writes chapters	Read, give feedback
Review	Writes a review	Decide whether to change things
Revising	Works in the feedback	Optional: forward supervisor feedback
Submission	Makes the Word file	Provide your uni's formatting spec

Where am I right now?

Ask Claude any time: "What's the status?"

Claude always knows where you are. Every chapter has one of these statuses:

Pending → First draft → Reviewed → Revised → Final

Before you submit — checklist

• All [QUELLE ERGÄNZEN] replaced with real sources?
• All [SEITE PRÜFEN] checked?
• All [ABBILDUNG X.Y] replaced with real figures?
• Bibliography complete?
• Table of contents in Word refreshed? (right-click → update fields)
• Plagiarism check from your uni run?
• Formatting matches your uni's spec?
• Declaration of authorship signed?

Then: submit and breathe out.