Ask your study set anything — without a chatbot

A question box that stays inside the source

Sometimes the slow part of studying is not reading the material but finding the one sentence that answers the question in your head. Novus Learn's Ask terminal gives every topic and local project a natural-language way into its source. Ask what a term means, when something happened, why a process matters, how two concepts differ, or for a short account of the main idea. The result is assembled from claims already extracted from that project and each part remains linked to its evidence.

That last sentence is the important one. Ask is not a general chatbot placed beside your notes. It has no model memory to draw on, no web search to quietly widen the scope, and no permission to smooth a gap with plausible prose. Its entire world is the project open in front of you. That makes it narrower than a chatbot, but it also makes every answer inspectable in a way a fluent response usually is not.

You will find the terminal inside a topic or project under Ask. The global Novus Hub can also search topics, dictionary entries, and projects from anywhere, while commands entered on a project take you directly to the relevant study section.

How a question becomes an answer

The engine first classifies the shape of the question. Define, who, when, where, why, how, compare, list, relationship, and summarise questions each emphasise different clues. It then removes the conversational filler, identifies the concept or phrase you are asking about, and ranks only the claims already present in the project. Important claims get a modest boost; exact concept matches get a stronger one; intent-specific signals such as dates help a when question find the right evidence.

The selected result is a list of claim IDs, not newly written prose. When the interface renders those IDs, it resolves them back to the real sentences and evidence links in the project. A validator rejects any answer that names a claim or concept the project does not contain. This is the same refusal-first discipline used by the flashcard and quiz builders.

• The question is parsed locally into an intent and focus terms.
• Existing source claims are scored for overlap, concept matches, importance, and intent clues.
• Only claim IDs that exist in the open project can be selected.
• The visible answer uses the source's sentences and carries direct evidence links.
• Low-confidence retrieval becomes an honest no-answer state, not a guess.

Compare two concepts without flattening the difference

Comparison questions need more structure than a stack of sentences. Ask “compare mitosis and meiosis,” for example, and the engine first tries to resolve two separate concepts in the project. It retrieves the best-supported claims for each side, keeps the two evidence trails separate, and lays them out together. If either concept is missing, the comparison stops rather than borrowing outside knowledge to complete the pair.

The interface can turn a supported comparison into the same evidence-linked visual used elsewhere in Novus Learn. Each side is built from real concepts and real claim IDs, so clicking through still lands on the passage that supports it. A visual is useful here because it makes symmetry and difference easier to scan, but it does not weaken the evidence contract to get there.

This works best when the source discusses both ideas directly. A page devoted to only one side cannot support a fair comparison, and Ask will tell you that instead of making the absent side up.

The same box can run study commands

Not every request is a question. Type “open the quiz,” “download the flashcards,” “download the references,” or “make it shorter” and the terminal recognises a bounded action the app already knows how to perform. Open commands navigate to a real section. Download commands reuse the same export functions available on that section. Make-it-shorter reruns the previous retrieval with a smaller selection from the same claims; it does not paraphrase the answer.

The grammar is intentionally conservative. A phrase is treated as a command only when an action verb and a supported target resolve together. Unknown instructions fall back to ordinary search rather than triggering an invented capability. A leading slash can make the command intent explicit, which is useful when a sentence could reasonably be read two ways.

• Open summary, notes, canvas, visuals, lesson, flashcards, quiz, Ask, or sources.
• Download flashcards, quiz, notes, summary, lesson, or references in their supported formats.
• Shorten the last answer by selecting fewer source claims.
• Use ⌘K or Ctrl-K to search the wider library and jump to a project from anywhere.

What happens when the source does not know

A useful research tool needs a visible boundary. If the focus cannot be resolved or no claims score strongly enough, the Ask terminal says that the source does not clearly answer the question. It suggests rephrasing or opening Sources to inspect the material directly. That answer can feel less satisfying than a polished paragraph, but it communicates something you need to know: the requested conclusion is not supported here.

Rephrasing helps when your wording and the source's wording differ. Try the named concept rather than a pronoun, ask one part at a time, or switch from a broad why question to a concrete definition. Rephrasing cannot create missing evidence, though. If a short article never states a cause, no phrasing should make a causal answer appear.

This is also why the confidence label stays visible. It describes the strength of retrieval from this source, not the universal truth of the answer. You still have the evidence link to make the final judgment yourself.

A practical way to use Ask while studying

Start with a question you genuinely expect the source to answer, then open at least one evidence link before moving on. That quick check teaches you the vocabulary the source uses and shows whether the retrieved sentence has the surrounding context you need. Follow with a comparison or how question once the central concepts are clear. At the end, use a command to open the quiz or flashcards and test whether the answer actually stuck.

The terminal is most valuable as a route through a source, not as a replacement for reading it. It shortens the distance between curiosity and evidence while keeping the surrounding study tools close. The summary gives you orientation, Ask helps you pursue a specific thread, Sources lets you audit it, and retrieval practice checks what you retained.

That loop is the feature in miniature: one question, a bounded answer, and a visible path back to the sentence that earned its place.