AI Study Guides

An AI study guide takes a topic that's scattered across slides, readings, and notes and pulls it into one focused, exam-ready document. Scholarly reads your material, maps its structure, and writes a clean guide with clear sections, key terms, summaries, and review questions — so you spend your time studying instead of organizing.

Study guides are built to reinforce understanding, not rote memorization. The AI pulls out the concepts and relationships your course actually tests and leaves out the trivia, so the guide reflects how the material fits together.

When to use a study guide

A study guide is the right tool when you want to consolidate a whole topic into one document you can read, mark up, and return to. Reach for it when you're:

• Reviewing a full lecture chapter or unit before an exam.
• Pulling several readings or slide decks into a single coherent overview.
• Turning a dense PDF into something scannable with headings, definitions, and recap questions.
• Building a printable handout to study from offline.

If you instead want a visual, branching overview of how ideas connect, generate a Mind Map. If you want to drill yourself with active recall, generate Flashcards. Many students do all three from the same source.

Creating a Study Guide

Open the Study Guide tile on your home page create grid. The create window lets you build a guide from any of these starting points:

• Upload — Drag in PDFs, Word documents, or PowerPoints from your computer.
• Library — Pick a PDF you've already uploaded to Scholarly.
• Google Drive — Connect Google Drive and choose the exact files — Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, PDFs, Word docs, PowerPoints, or text files — without downloading and re-uploading. See Uploading Content.
• Link — Paste a website or PDF URL and the AI pulls in the content.
• Prompt — Skip files entirely and just describe a topic, like "Study guide for cellular respiration with key terms and practice questions." Great for review when you don't have a source on hand yet.

You can combine sources — for example, pick two PDFs from your library and add a prompt to steer what to emphasize.

Customize before you generate

After choosing your sources, the customize step lets you shape the guide:

• Style — Pick how the guide is built:

• Theme — Choose the visual look of the finished PDF.
• Language — Generate the guide in your preferred language.
• AI model — Some models are reserved for paid plans and show a lock badge. See Choosing an AI Model.
• Custom instructions — Free-text field to give specific directions, like "Add practice questions after each section" or "Emphasize the equations and keep it printable."

Click Generate Study Guide and the work runs in the background — you can close the window and keep studying. You'll be notified when it's ready, and it appears under Background Tasks while it generates.

What you get

Your finished study guide is a downloadable PDF that lands in your library like any other content item. Open it and you can:

• Read and study it in the PDF viewer, with chat alongside to ask follow-up questions.
• Download it to keep or print.
• Share it with a link so classmates can view it.
• Turn it into more study material — from the guide's follow-up actions you can spin up Flashcards, a quiz, a podcast, a video lecture, or AI Slides from the same content, no re-uploading required.

Because the output is a real PDF in your library, everything you can do with an uploaded PDF you can do with your study guide. See the PDF guide for the full set of viewer and conversion options.

Tips

• Richer sources make deeper guides. A full lecture chapter produces a more detailed guide than a single slide; a one-line prompt produces a broad overview.
• Match the style to the exam. Use Exam Prep when you want high-yield, testable material front and center; use Quick Review the night before for a fast scannable pass.
• Steer it with custom instructions. Tell the AI to focus on specific chapters, lead with a glossary, or keep the layout printable.
• Pair it with active recall. Reading a guide once is a start — convert it into flashcards or a quiz and test yourself to actually lock the material in.
• Keep guides in a folder. Group a unit's study guide, flashcards, and source PDFs together so everything for that exam is in one place.

Frequently asked questions

What can I make a study guide from?

Uploaded PDFs, Word docs, and PowerPoints; PDFs already in your library; Google Drive files; a website or PDF link; or just a typed prompt. You can mix several sources in one guide.

How long does it take?

Generation runs in the background and usually takes a few minutes. You don't need to wait on the screen — keep working and you'll be notified when it's ready.

Can I download or print my study guide?

Yes. Every study guide is a PDF you can download, print, or share with a link.

Can I turn a study guide into flashcards or a quiz?

Yes. Because the guide lives in your library as a PDF, you can generate flashcards, quizzes, podcasts, video lectures, or AI slides from it — the same content, in a different study format.

What's the difference between a study guide and a mind map?

A study guide is a structured document — sections, definitions, summaries, and review questions — best for reading and reviewing. A mind map is a visual, branching diagram that shows how concepts connect at a glance. Both generate a downloadable PDF, and you can make both from the same source.

Is it free?

You can create study guides on the free plan using your shared daily AI creation limit. Paid plans raise those limits and support longer source documents. Limits depend on your plan — see Plans and Limits.