how to use chatgpt to write dissertation

• How to Use ChatGPT in Thesis/Dissertation Writing

In the ever-evolving landscape of academic research and dissertation writing, staying at the forefront of innovative tools is essential. As the academic world continues to embrace technology, integrating AI-powered solutions into your research process has become not just an option, but a smart strategy.

With ChatGPT , you have at your fingertips a versatile tool that can revolutionize the way you approach thesis and dissertation writing. Whether you're a graduate student navigating the intricate world of academia or a seasoned researcher looking to optimize your workflow, ChatGPT can be a valuable ally in achieving your academic goals.

Furthermore, BridgeText can assist you in the process of humanizing AI-generated text , ensuring that your academic work maintains a human touch while benefiting from AI capabilities.

In this blog post, we will explore how to harness the power of ChatGPT to enhance your thesis or dissertation writing process. We will delve into various stages of your academic journey, from defining your research goals to the final proofreading phase, demonstrating how ChatGPT can streamline and elevate your work. So, let's dive in and discover how ChatGPT can be a game-changer in the world of academic writing .

Define Your Thesis/Dissertation Goals

Before embarking on any academic journey, it's crucial to have a clear destination in mind. In the realm of thesis and dissertation writing, this destination is often your research goals. Defining these goals is the first and most vital step in your scholarly quest, and ChatGPT can be your trusted companion in this endeavor.

ChatGPT thesis writing begins with a solid foundation – your research objectives. By providing a succinct and well-defined set of goals for your thesis or dissertation, you not only streamline the entire writing process but also enable ChatGPT to work more effectively. Here's how you can do it:

• Clarity is Key : Start by formulating concise and specific research questions or objectives. Use ChatGPT to help articulate your thoughts and ensure your goals are well-structured and coherent. By employing ChatGPT for thesis writing , you can refine your ideas, getting closer to the heart of what you want to achieve.
• Iterate and Refine : With ChatGPT's assistance, don't hesitate to revise and refine your research goals as your project progresses. The flexibility of chatgpt phd thesis writing support means that you can adapt your objectives in response to emerging insights or changing research directions.
• Expert Insights : Seek feedback and guidance from experienced mentors or advisors. ChatGPT can assist in crafting well-informed research objectives, but the wisdom of seasoned academics can provide invaluable perspective and refinement.

By collaborating with ChatGPT from the very beginning, you can refine your research goals, ensuring they are precise, relevant, and aligned with your academic aspirations. With your objectives clearly defined and enriched with expert insights, you're now ready to explore how ChatGPT can help you generate ideas that drive your thesis or dissertation forward.

Access ChatGPT & Generate Ideas

Once you've defined your thesis or dissertation goals with precision, the next phase in your academic journey is to tap into the vast wellspring of creativity and knowledge that ChatGPT offers. Accessing ChatGPT and harnessing its capabilities can be a game-changer, especially when it comes to brainstorming and generating ideas that will shape your research.

• Unlocking ChatGPT's Potential : Accessing ChatGPT thesis support is easier than ever. Whether you're a seasoned researcher or a graduate student just starting your journey, the power of ChatGPT is at your fingertips. Many academic institutions and research libraries provide access to ChatGPT, ensuring that you have a reliable resource at your disposal.
• Exploring Diverse Perspectives : One of the standout features of ChatGPT for thesis writing is its ability to offer a multitude of perspectives. It can assist you in generating ideas from various angles, shedding light on previously unexplored facets of your research. By exposing yourself to diverse viewpoints, you can enrich your work and create a more comprehensive thesis or dissertation.
• Overcoming Writer's Block : Every writer, regardless of their expertise, encounters writer's block from time to time. When you're faced with a creative drought, ChatGPT can come to your rescue. It's an excellent tool for sparking creativity and overcoming mental roadblocks. Simply engage with ChatGPT, pose questions, and watch as innovative ideas flow.
• Customized Solutions : ChatGPT can tailor its responses to your specific research area, ensuring that the generated ideas align with your chatgpt thesis objectives. By fine-tuning the AI's parameters, you can receive suggestions that are not only creative but also highly relevant to your field of study.
• Collaborative Brainstorming : Don't hesitate to collaborate with ChatGPT as if it were a virtual research partner. Discuss your research goals, share your thoughts, and receive feedback and suggestions. This collaborative approach can result in a treasure trove of ideas that may have otherwise remained hidden.

Accessing ChatGPT for idea generation is not just about technology; it's about unleashing your own creativity with the help of a powerful tool. By integrating ChatGPT into your research process, you open the door to a world of innovative ideas that can elevate your thesis or dissertation to new heights.

With your research objectives clearly defined and a wealth of ideas at your disposal, it's time to move forward and clarify the concepts and statements within your work.

Clarify Concepts and Statements

With your thesis or dissertation goals established and a wealth of ideas generated, it's time to dive into the heart of your academic work: clarifying concepts and statements. This critical phase involves ensuring that your research is presented with utmost clarity, precision, and coherence.

• Conceptual Precision : In the realm of academic writing, precision is paramount. To achieve this, use ChatGPT for thesis writing to clarify complex concepts and ensure they are accurately articulated. ChatGPT can assist in breaking down intricate ideas into digestible components, making your work more accessible to your audience.
• Language Refinement : The nuances of language play a significant role in academic writing. ChatGPT can help you refine your language by suggesting synonyms, rephrasing sentences, or providing alternative ways to express your ideas. This ensures that your chatgpt thesis is not only well-researched but also elegantly presented.
• Alignment with Research Objectives : Your concepts and statements should align seamlessly with the goals you've defined for your research. Utilize ChatGPT to review your work for consistency and coherence. Ensure that every part of your thesis or dissertation contributes to the overarching narrative you've established.
• Addressing Ambiguities : Academic writing often involves navigating through potential ambiguities. ChatGPT can assist in identifying and resolving ambiguities within your work, providing a clearer and more convincing argument. This meticulous attention to detail can make a significant difference in the quality of your research.
• Citation Assistance : Accurate citation is a crucial aspect of academic writing. ChatGPT can help you correctly cite sources, ensuring that your chatgpt phd thesis adheres to academic standards and avoids plagiarism. It can also suggest appropriate citation styles based on your field of study.
• Peer-Reviewed Insights : Engage with ChatGPT as a virtual peer reviewer. Seek its input on the clarity and coherence of your concepts and statements. This unique perspective can offer fresh insights and help you refine your work further.

Clarifying concepts and statements is not just about improving the readability of your work; it's about enhancing the overall quality of your research. With ChatGPT as your ally, you can ensure that your thesis or dissertation is a testament to precision, clarity, and academic excellence.

Expand Content

With your concepts and statements clarified, it's time to delve deeper into your research and expand the content of your thesis or dissertation. This phase is about providing comprehensive insights, supporting your arguments, and presenting a thorough examination of your chosen topic.

• In-Depth Research : Use ChatGPT to facilitate in-depth research on your subject matter. Its ability to sift through vast amounts of information quickly can save you valuable time. Additionally, ChatGPT can assist in identifying credible sources, ensuring that your thesis or dissertation is well-supported.
• Elaboration of Key Points : For each key point or argument in your work, consider expanding on it. ChatGPT can provide suggestions on how to elaborate further, offering additional evidence, examples, or analyses to strengthen your position.
• Literature Review Enhancement : In academic writing, a robust literature review is essential. ChatGPT can help you enhance your literature review section by summarizing key studies, highlighting their relevance, and offering insights into their methodologies and findings.
• Supporting Data and Statistics : If your research relies on data or statistics, ChatGPT can assist in presenting this information effectively. It can generate clear and concise explanations of data, ensuring that your dissertation is not only well-researched but also well-explained.
• Balanced Perspectives : Engage ChatGPT to present balanced perspectives on contentious issues. It can help you explore opposing viewpoints and incorporate counterarguments, contributing to a more well-rounded discussion within your work.
• Visual Aids : Consider the use of visual aids such as charts, graphs, and illustrations to complement your written content. ChatGPT can suggest appropriate ways to incorporate visual elements that enhance the comprehension of your ideas.
• Cohesive Transitions : As you expand your content, pay attention to the flow of your work. ChatGPT can offer suggestions for cohesive transitions between sections and chapters, ensuring that your dissertation or thesis reads smoothly and logically.

Expanding the content of your thesis or dissertation is not about adding unnecessary length; it's about providing a comprehensive exploration of your chosen topic. With ChatGPT as your research companion, you can enrich your work with valuable insights and evidence, making it a valuable contribution to your field of study.

Summarize and Paraphrase

With your content expanded and enriched, it's essential to ensure that your thesis or dissertation maintains clarity and conciseness. This phase focuses on summarizing complex ideas and paraphrasing content to make it more accessible to your audience while retaining its academic rigor.

• Effective Summaries : Summarization is a vital skill in academic writing. Use ChatGPT to create concise and effective summaries of lengthy passages or complex theories. These summaries can serve as introductions to new sections or as standalone insights, providing your readers with a clear overview.
• Clarity in Paraphrasing : Paraphrasing is an art that requires precision. ChatGPT can assist in rephrasing sentences or paragraphs while preserving the original meaning and intent. This is particularly valuable when you want to avoid plagiarism or simplify intricate language without losing academic rigor.
• Condensing Key Points : Identify the key points of your work and use ChatGPT to condense them into succinct statements. This ensures that your thesis or dissertation remains focused and easily digestible, allowing your readers to grasp the essence of your research quickly.
• Maintaining Scholarly Tone : While summarizing and paraphrasing, it's crucial to maintain a scholarly tone. ChatGPT can help you strike the right balance between clarity and academic rigor, ensuring that your work is both accessible and authoritative.
• Citing Original Sources : When summarizing or paraphrasing, ensure that you appropriately cite the original sources of your ideas. ChatGPT can assist in generating proper citations, helping you adhere to academic standards and avoid plagiarism.
• Peer Review for Clarity : Engage with ChatGPT as a virtual peer reviewer during this phase. Seek its input on the clarity and effectiveness of your summaries and paraphrased content. Fresh perspectives can help you refine your work further.
• Enhancing Readability : Effective summarization and paraphrasing contribute to the overall readability of your work. ChatGPT can offer insights on sentence structure, ensuring that your dissertation or thesis flows smoothly and remains engaging

Summarizing and paraphrasing are essential tools in your academic writing toolkit. By using ChatGPT to craft clear and concise insights, you can make your research more accessible to your readers while maintaining the integrity of your work.

Humanizing Content With BridgeText

In the ever-evolving landscape of academic writing, technology plays a significant role, but so does the need for a human touch. In today's academic environment, AI detector tools like ZeroGPT have become adept at identifying AI-generated content. However, this doesn't mean you have to sacrifice the personal and human element of your work.

• Maintaining Academic Integrity : While AI tools like ChatGPT are invaluable for research and idea generation, they may lack the nuanced understanding of context and tone that humans possess. At BridgeText, our team of experienced writers ensures that your work maintains the highest academic standards while being easily accessible and relatable to your audience.
• Crafting Engaging Introductions : An engaging introduction sets the tone for your thesis or dissertation. BridgeText writers excel at crafting introductions that not only provide an overview of your research but also captivate your readers' attention. We understand the art of drawing your audience in while staying true to the academic essence of your work.
• Humanizing Complex Concepts : Academic writing often involves discussing intricate theories and concepts. BridgeText writers have the expertise to break down these complex ideas into digestible explanations. We ensure that your readers can grasp the essence of your work without feeling overwhelmed.
• Injecting Clarity and Flow : Transitioning smoothly between ideas and maintaining the logical flow of your work is an art that BridgeText writers excel at. We ensure that your thesis or dissertation reads cohesively, eliminating any jarring transitions or inconsistencies.
• Tailored Language and Tone : Every academic field has its unique language and tone. BridgeText writers are well-versed in tailoring your content to match the expectations of your specific discipline. We ensure that your work not only meets academic requirements but also resonates with your peers and mentors.
• Human Editing Excellence : Nowadays, AI detector tools like ZeroGPT can identify AI-generated papers. However, BridgeText offers a unique solution. Our dedicated human editors specialize in refining and enhancing your AI-generated content, adding that crucial human touch that sets your work apart.
• Proofreading and Editing : Beyond humanizing your content, we provide meticulous proofreading and editing services. Our team checks for grammar, punctuation, and formatting, ensuring that your dissertation or thesis is polished and error-free.

BridgeText is committed to adding the personal touch that distinguishes your academic work. We understand that your research is a reflection of your dedication and expertise, and we aim to complement your efforts by humanizing your content while maintaining the highest academic standards.

Final Proofreading

As you approach the culmination of your academic journey with your thesis or dissertation, one crucial step stands between you and the finish line: final proofreading. This phase is your opportunity to ensure that every detail of your work is flawless, that your writing is impeccable, and that your research shines brightly.

• Error Elimination : Proofreading is more than just checking for typos and grammar mistakes. It involves a meticulous examination of your work to eliminate errors, both minor and major. These errors can range from punctuation slip-ups to inaccuracies in citations or references. Our proofreading team leaves no stone unturned to make sure your thesis or dissertation is error-free.
• Consistency Check : Academic writing often involves adhering to specific style guides or formatting requirements. Our proofreaders ensure that your work maintains consistency in formatting, citation style, and referencing throughout. This attention to detail contributes to the professionalism and credibility of your work.
• Clarity Enhancement : While proofreading, we focus on enhancing the overall clarity of your content. This includes identifying sentences or sections that may be confusing to your readers and suggesting revisions to improve comprehension. We want your research to be easily understood and accessible.
• Grammar and Language Refinement : Your writing should not only be clear but also elegant. Our proofreading team pays close attention to refining the language used in your dissertation or thesis. We suggest improvements in sentence structure, word choice, and overall readability, ensuring your work reads fluently and professionally.
• In-Depth Review : The proofreading process is thorough and in-depth. We scrutinize your work section by section, ensuring that your arguments are logically presented, that your evidence supports your claims, and that your conclusions are well-supported by your research.
• Cross-Referencing : In academic writing, cross-referencing is crucial. We verify that your citations and references match correctly, eliminating any discrepancies that could impact the credibility of your work. This meticulous cross-referencing ensures the highest level of academic integrity.
• Final Polishing : The final proofreading phase is about giving your work that last, shining polish. It's the step that takes your thesis or dissertation from excellent to exceptional. Our goal is to help you present your research with the utmost professionalism and attention to detail.

At BridgeText, we understand that your academic work is a reflection of your dedication and expertise. Our final proofreading service is designed to ensure that your thesis or dissertation is a true academic gem, ready to be shared with your peers, advisors, and the wider academic community.

With your work polished to perfection, you're now prepared to confidently present your research to the world, knowing that every detail has been meticulously reviewed and refined.

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How to Use ChatGPT to Write a Research Paper: Prompts & Ideas 

If you’re a student, you’ve probably heard of ChatGPT. This advanced AI model can handle the task of writing an entire research paper from scratch. Many scholars use the chatbot to create texts with minimum effort. However, most of the time, the results are far from impressive. Plus, students risk getting punished for unethical AI use.

But what if we told you there are ways of using ChatGPT to create excellent papers and save time on the steps that would take ages to do manually?

In this article, our experts will discuss how to use the chatbot to make research writing easier. We will also explain what to avoid and suggest what custom GPTs you may use to make the writing process more efficient.

🔍 Is ChatGPT Good for Research?

• ✍️ Limitations of ChatGPT
• 🎯 How to Use AI to Write a Research Paper
• 🤔 Aspects AI Can’t Help You With
• 🚀 Best Custom GPTs for Research
• 💡 Key Takeaways

🔗 References

In general, it’s possible to use ChatGPT as a research assistant. But the question is, for what end can you use it?

Well, if your aim is not to generate an entire paper but rather to make some of the routine writing steps easier, then using an AI tool can be ethical and permissible.

For instance, you can use ChatGPT to:

• Search for information,
• Rewrite complex ideas,
• Summarize longer texts,
• Develop research questions ,
• Create research paper abstracts,
• Generate sample outlines.

ChatGPT is very effective when it comes to handling such tasks. It’s also absolutely legal to use it for these purposes.

All you need to do is write a very clear prompt . Otherwise, the chatbot might give you an irrelevant answer. We’re going to share the most effective prompts for various research purposes in the following sections.

But first, an important disclaimer:

We’re firmly against AI cheating , and we don’t encourage it in any shape or form. That’s why this guide will talk about legal and honest ways to use AI for research assistance.

✍️ Limitations of Using ChatGPT for Research

If you decide to use the chatbot for your academic work, it’s essential to consider its limitations . This will help you focus on what AI does best and avoid trusting it with things that can ruin your research.

Here are the main limitations you want to consider:

• It’s limited by the datasets . Because ChatGPT is not trained on recent data, it has no knowledge of the most up-to-date information or findings in specific fields.
• It lacks depth . While the chatbot can effectively summarize information, it may fail to fully grasp complex theories and arguments of a research topic.
• It tends to plagiarize . When ChatGPT generates its texts, it rehashes the information from its database. So, even if a text seems original, it contains other people’s ideas.
• It struggles with contextualizing and interpreting data . The chatbot lacks the human ability to analyze and contextualize information critically. It needs guidance through concrete, well-written prompts.
• It can present incorrect answers . Sometimes, the chatbot simply lacks information in a specific research field. This leads to inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the generated content.
• It’s prone to bias . Since ChatGPT is trained on online data that often includes biased and offensive information, it can generate statements expressing bias towards specific ideas or people.
• It’s associated with cheating . Some unethical researches generate entire papers without making any real effort. If students do the same, they will be caught with the help of AI essay checkers and punished for cheating.

Even though it may be tempting, it’s best not to rely on AI too much if you want to conduct good research. You can use some of the chatbot’s functions to make the process easier, but you still have to do most of the work yourself.

🎯 How to Use ChatGPT to Write a Research Paper: Top 11 Ideas

So, do you want to know how to use ChatGPT to write a paper? If you do, look no further!

The following list of tips will explain to you how to:

• Brainstorm topics,
• Create a roadmap,
• Refine your research topic,
• Find gaps in your outline,
• Locate sources,
• Find cases to explore,
• Summarize texts,
• Analyze statistical data,
• Edit as you write,
• Create an abstract,
• Format the references.

We’ve also included examples of the most effective prompts for each research aspect. Feel free to try them out!

1. Brainstorm Topics with ChatGPT

For many students, the most challenging part of research is the beginning. Sometimes, you just don’t know what to focus on. In situations like this, ChatGPT can help you brainstorm ideas and collect information.

Let’s assume you need to write an essay about pop culture and modern art, but you need help figuring out where to start.

The first step would be to create a good prompt for the chatbot. For instance, you can phrase your request like this:

The second step will be to choose one topic from the generated list and ask ChatGPT to tell you more about it.

For instance:

You’ll get a detailed answer on the subject.

Lastly, you can use the most interesting points from the last reply to narrow down your topic even further or to get more ideas for the direction of your paper.

For example:

And now you have fresh, focused topics that you can research.

2. Use AI to Create a Roadmap

Once you’ve chosen a topic, you can use ChatGPT to create a detailed roadmap that will guide your research and help you stay on track.

As we’ve mentioned before, when you work with ChatGPT, a good prompt is the key to getting a relevant answer. This is especially true for generating outlines and roadmaps. The more detailed and clear your prompt is, the better outcome you will get.

Here’s an example of what your request might look like:

The roadmap also included suggestions for a literature review, methodology, case studies, discussion, and other essential research components. You can use all this information to create an outline. To streamline this task, try using our free research paper outline generator .

We also suggest you research the topic before using AI. That way, you’ll have a general understanding of the subject and will be able to judge the quality of the generated roadmap.

3. Refine Your Research Question with AI

Any research needs a central question. Sometimes, it may be hard to collect your thoughts and come up with an interesting issue to focus on. In this case, you can use ChatGPT to assist you.

Here’s how:

• Describe the topic of your paper clearly and concisely.
• Ask the chatbot to suggest several research questions based on your requirements.
• Choose the best one.

Your prompt can look like this:

Tip : We also recommend using our free question generator from text . It will easily turn your research idea into a question without you having to come up with elaborate prompts.

4. Ask ChatGPT to Identify Gaps in Your Outline

Suppose you’re done with the outline and have the research question, but you feel something needs to be added to it. In that case, you can use ChatGPT to identify the gaps in your research plan.

Here’s what the prompt may look like:

5. Use the Chatbot to Find Sources

Once you have completed the preparation stage, it’s time to find suitable sources and start researching.

How can ChatGPT help you with it?

Well, one way is to ask ChatGPT to create a list of references on the subject. However, this is a bad idea since you’ll only get a list of nonexistent sources vaguely related to the central theme of your research.

Instead, we suggest you ask ChatGPT to locate relevant works on separate points from your outline. This will allow you to get a comprehensive overview of diverse aspects related to your topic and not just the central theme itself.

For instance, if the topic of your paper is the semiotics of memes used in modern art, one of the points in your outline can be dedicated to the visual language in memetic social commentary. Suppose this part of your research will be about 3 pages long.

So, you can ask the chatbot the following:

One thing to note is that ChatGPT can’t provide you with internet links, so you’ll have to look for sources on your own. And while you do that, you may also come across interesting articles or get new ideas that you can use to perfect your outline.

Tip : To ensure that your text doesn’t contain any plagiarized fragments from the sources, you may run it through our free plagiarism checker . And if you need additional clarifications regarding the meaning of complicated passages, feel free to use a quote explainer .

6. Find Specific Cases to Explore

Think your research lacks depth? Try adding to it real-life cases or specific historical incidents. They will help you support your statement, better convey your ideas, and add credibility to your paper.

If you want to include an example in your paper but struggle to think of one, you can use ChatGPT to look for a specific event or real-life instance related to your topic.

Here’s what the prompt can look like:

The results also included Brazilian, South Korean, and French memes with explanations. We’d say that’s enough to create a comprehensive overview. Just make sure to fact-check the generated examples and see if they actually exist.

7. Use AI to Summarize Lengthy Sources

If you need to learn the main idea of a lengthy passage quickly, you can use ChatGPT as a summarizer. This can be especially helpful when you’re working on a literature review and need brief descriptions of your sources.

Let’s try it with an article on the semiotics of memes :

When you need a summary, it’s best to provide the chatbot with the whole text by copy-pasting it. It’s important because if you use vague prompts with only the work’s title, the tool will either refer to a nonexistent work or refuse to answer the request:

Tip : In addition to ChatGPT, try using our key points maker . It will present all the necessary information from the text in a convenient list format. And if you need to create an overview of previous research for your paper’s introduction, use our background of the study generator .

8. Analyze Statistical Data with ChatGPT

Now, what should you do if your research includes statistical data? Sometimes, it can be hard to interpret numbers and connections between them. Luckily, ChatGPT can help you analyze and organize it, isolate the most critical pieces of data, and create a comprehensive summary.

To make it work, ensure that your prompt is as detailed as possible. You will also need to include the entire dataset in it.

Here’s an example:

The chatbot can also use inferential statistics methods such as chi-square tests or ANOVA , but that would require large, concrete numbers.

Otherwise, the chatbot will get stuck repeating the same formula:

Another important thing is not to rely on AI entirely when it comes to statistical analysis. The reason is that the chatbot can overlook certain things or give biased results. In some cases, ChatGPT usage for data analysis can lead to p- hacking , which is highly unethical.

What does this mean, exactly?

Well, p-hacking is a way of misusing data to create a statistically significant result when, in fact, it doesn’t exist. This leads to false conclusions and undermines the reliability of the study. For that reason, it’s crucial to analyze the data yourself and carefully double-check the results if you decide to delegate the task to AI.

Still, ChatGPT works effectively when it is necessary to summarize data or conduct a preliminary analysis of the statistical data and make conclusions depending on the study findings.

9. Use the Chatbot to Edit as You Write

While working on your paper, you may want to improve or edit its parts. That’s another aspect where ChatGPT will come in handy.

Here’s what it can do for you:

• Simplify the language . Some people use the tool to make their text more complex and formal, but more often than not, it only makes it unreadable. Simplifying it is a much better option.
• Shorten long or complex sentences . Using short sentences will help you create a more cohesive and reader-friendly paper.
• Substitute certain words with synonyms . This is especially useful when you want to say something complicated in a few words.
• Check your grammar . It’s always a good idea to proofread your paper to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Take a look at this text:

Within the contemporary art landscape, memes are used as agents of cultural discourse, where their inherent capacity for humor and cultural resonance help address the challenges of modern society. Memes fuse visual and textual elements, which allows them transcend traditional artistic mediums, thus offering artists a dynamic platform for critiquing current socio-political events. This combination of digital vernacular and artistic expression not only blurs the boundaries between high and low culture but also reflects the evolving nature of expression in the digital age.

It sounds overcomplicated, but we can improve it with the help of Chat GPT:

Want to know more? Check out our comprehensive guide on using ChatGPT to edit essays .

Tip : We recommend listening to the text of your research paper with our essay reader tool. This will help you effectively notice any inconsistencies, difficult wording, or confusing grammar patterns.

10. Create an Abstract with AI

When you’re done with the bulk of your research and have little time to work on your abstract, ChatGPT can be a real lifesaver.

Copying and pasting the whole paper into the chatbot may not be the best idea since the AI can miss important information and not include it in the abstract. Instead, it’s best to ask the tool to create short summaries for each section of your work.

What you need to do is start a new chat and use the following prompt with each portion of your text:

After that, you simply combine the summaries to create an abstract. You use ChatGPT to help you structure it with this prompt:

Note that the generated abstract contains phrases typical for ChatGPT, like “delves into.” If your professor decides to check such a text for AI, it will most probably be marked as suspicious. That’s why it is not a good idea to submit it as it is. Consider rewriting such an abstract manually or using an AI humanizer to quickly add a human touch.

Tip : Another easy way to create an abstract is to use our free online abstract generator .

11. Use ChatGPT to Format Your References

Creating a list of references is an essential part of any research. It’s also one of its most challenging and time-consuming aspects. After all, each formatting style has numerous specific characteristics that can easily get confused.

ChatGPT can save your time and help avoid unnecessary mistakes while citing the sources. The most important thing is not to ask the AI tool to generate references from scratch.

Instead, we recommend you find all the necessary data for the references yourself. Then, manually input these data into ChatGPT and ask it to create a reference for you. That way, you’ll ensure everything is formatted correctly and avoid citing nonexistent works in your paper.

🤔 Research Aspects AI Can’t Help You With

The list of research aspects ChatGPT can help you with may look very impressive, but don’t let it fool you! There are still plenty of things that shouldn’t be entrusted to AI tools . It’s essential to know about them since ChatGPT can easily make its users overestimate its abilities regarding research, writing, and editing.

Let’s see why you shouldn’t trust AI with the following:

• Experimental design and methodology,
• Moral reasoning,
• In-depth data analysis,
• Comprehensive literature review,
• Peer review and personalized guidance.

Experimental Design & Methodology

ChatGPT can do many things, but it still lacks the nuanced understanding and the expertise to design experiments and choose the correct methodology. The chatbot can suggest some general ideas or set the direction for your research, but you’ll have to work on your own to achieve the most accurate results.

Moral Reasoning

AI tools like ChatGPT lack moral reasoning and ethical judgment. They can write about ethical principles if you ask them to, but they don’t know how to apply these principles in their writing.

When you work on your research, considering small nuances and adhering to guidelines is very important, especially if your paper involves human subjects. For that reason, you have to rely on yourself to navigate ethical issues in your research.

In-Depth Data Analysis

To analyze or interpret the research data, you need to be well-versed in the subject of your study. While AI models work with a vast amount of data, they still lack in-depth information in certain study fields.

ChatGPT can be helpful if you want to analyze a small amount of data, but for more detailed and nuanced conclusions, it’s best to rely on yourself.

Comprehensive Literature Review

You can use ChatGPT to generate small summaries and lay the basis for your literature review. However, to make your research work, you’ll need an in-depth analysis that discusses the source’s relevance, credibility, and importance in the context of your research. This task is something ChatGPT can’t handle.

Peer Review & Personalized Guidance

Collaboration with other researchers in the same field is a chance to improve your knowledge, learn more about different perspectives, and receive valuable feedback. Surely, ChatGPT can check your paper for mistakes and evaluate it, but it can never replace a real peer review.

Remember to refrain from delegating these aspects to AI. This will help you avoid problems and make the most out of your research experience.

🚀 Use ChatGPT for Research Effectively with Custom GPTs

For a more effective AI-assisted writing process, we suggest you use custom models designed for specific research areas. Check out the best GPTs that can serve as your personal assistants.

Note : To use these custom models, you need a subscription to ChatGPT Plus. For $20 a month, you will access the most advanced LLM to date and enjoy many additional functions.

• SciSpace GPT . With this handy tool, you’ll have access to over 200 million academic articles right at your fingertips. SciSpace will give an accurate response to any scientific question and provide digestible summaries of research papers for a deeper study.
• Consensus . You can use this custom GPT to get an evidence-based answer to your question and conduct an in-depth literature search. Besides, Consensus can give you a proper bibliography list in the APA format.
• Scholar GPT . With this AI model, you can research millions of academic sources quickly and efficiently. Feel free to ask it for graphics, charts, and even real-time updates. It will also help you with problem-solving and NLP tasks.
• Research-Paper Analyzer . Want to have access to simplified summaries of complicated research papers? Try this GPT. It instantly extracts the main points of a study to facilitate easy comprehension. It can also analyze the credibility and relevance of a chosen paper.
• Academic Research Reviewer . Working with this GPT is like having a seasoned professor to help you refine your research paper. It will examine the depth of your literature review, underline the strengths and weaknesses of your paper, highlight gaps, and suggest areas for further research.
• PubMed Buddy . This GPT allows you to search for information in PubMed and UnPaywall databases. With PubMed Buddy, you’ll avoid going through countless irrelevant studies and have more time to spend on the more exciting research aspects.
• Chemistry Lab Partner . Get specific help on difficult chemistry questions with this tool. Analyzing data and explaining concepts are not the only functions of Chemistry Lab Partner. It can also assist with your lab work and even enable virtual experiments.
• Graduate Level Physics GPT . Try this custom GPT to make the advanced physics more understandable. It’s a practical tool that breaks complicated topics into brief and digestible explanations. Besides, it assists with physics problems and research.
• Physics Tutor . Do physics concepts seem too complex and intimidating to you? This GPT is here to sort things out. It will give simple and clear explanations understandable to physics students and laypeople who are just curious about how this world works.
• Math Expert . Working with this GPT is like having a helpful math tutor available anytime. It not only gives you a correct solution to any problem or equation but also provides a step-by-step explanation of how to get there.

💡 How to Use ChatGPT for Research: Key Takeaways

ChatGPT is a smart and helpful tool that can help you simplify some of the steps of your research process. You can use it to:

• Look for fresh and exciting topics,
• Create roadmaps,
• Find sources,
• Find real-life examples,
• Create research questions,
• Identify gaps in your outline,
• Analyze statistics,
• Edit your writing,
• Create abstracts,

One thing to remember is that relying on yourself is always a better option. Even though AI can save you lots of time, it still lacks ethical judgment, critical thinking, and expert knowledge in your field. If you decide to use ChatGPT in your research, make sure to double-check everything it produces and never use generated replies in your texts.

We hope you’ve found this article helpful and learned something new. Now, you know how to use ChatgGPT ethically, so you don’t have to worry about being caught. We suggest you check out your school’s guidelines before using the chatbot. Feel free to share your experiences working with AI tools in the comments below!

Want to know more about using ChatGPT in your studies? Check out our in-depth articles with tips on how to generate longer essays and make AI texts undetectable .

• How to Use ChatGPT to Do Research for Papers, Presentations, Studies, and More: ZDNet
• Three Ways to Leverage ChatGPT and Other Generative AI in Research: Times Higher Education
• The Top 10 Limitations of ChatGPT – Forbes
• Top 10 Drawbacks of Using ChatGPT in Academics: Analytics Insight
• The Best Custom GPTs to Make ChatGPT Even More Powerful: Digital Trends
• How to Use ChatGPT for Research and Essays: MakeUseOf
• Increase Your Creativity with ChatGPT – Psychology Today
• How Can I Use ChatGPT in My Research Work?: GitHub
• How to Use ChatGPT as a Research Tool: LinkedIn
• The Best AI Tools to Power Your Academic Research: Euronews
• ChatGPT and Fake Citations: Duke University
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• 08 April 2024

Three ways ChatGPT helps me in my academic writing

• Dritjon Gruda 0

Dritjon Gruda is an invited associate professor of organizational behavior at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon, the Católica Porto Business School and the Research Centre in Management and Economics.

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Confession time: I use generative artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the debate over whether chatbots are positive or negative forces in academia, I use these tools almost daily to refine the phrasing in papers that I’ve written, and to seek an alternative assessment of work I’ve been asked to evaluate, as either a reviewer or an editor. AI even helped me to refine this article.

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Step-by-step Guide to Using ChatGPT to Write a Report, Thesis and Dissertation

You must have heard or read about ChatGPT. What is it? A software or a magician? ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed and launched by OpenAI in November 2022. This chatbot can write answers, reports, codes, prompts, and more in seconds.

Moreover, it can write computer programs, compose music, teleplays, fairy tales, and write poetry and songs. It’s built with OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 and 4 families of large language models. The latest version of ChatGPT, released on 14th March 2023, is built on GPT 4 OpenAI model and can be purchased through a subscription for a specific time.

Benefits of using ChatGPT to write reports, theses, and dissertations

ChatGPT is a powerful artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot with many benefits. Today we shall be highlighting the benefits ChatGPT has on reports, theses, and dissertations.

Reports are professional documents submitted to an institute, department, company, and more. They are formal documents containing a written account of something observed or investigated. Below are some benefits of using ChatGPT to write reports.

Saves time:  ChatGPT saves your precious time; it writes your reports quickly and saves the time you would have spent researching and writing from the beginning.

Quality content:  The AI chatbot has been trained with massive data; hence it can write high-quality reports for you.

Variety of Styles:  Reports are usually long; thus, they can bore the reader if the content is not engaging. ChatGPT uses different styles, i.e., bullet points, lists, paragraphs, and more. This makes a report engaging.

Consistency and Productivity:  ChatGPT write the report in a consistent style and tone. This improves the readability of the report. Moreover, as ChatGPT saves your precious time, you can spend that time focusing on other tasks, improving your productivity.

Theses is a theory or personal research document. These are mainly written by university students proposing research papers on particular topics. Below are the benefits of using ChatGPT to write theses.

New idea:  ChatGPT helps you by providing a variety of ideas that can help you write your thesis. Moreover, the ideas can make your thesis stand out from others.

Guidance:  ChatGPT guides you throughout your thesis writing by providing references, and research material, summarising long research essays, and highlighting important points.

Writing Guidance:  The artificial intelligence model can advise and guide your style, tone, grammar, and more. ChatGPT guides you with this writing; further, it can proofread and rephrase your content.

3. Dissertation

Dissertation is a formal essay on a particular topic. It’s the same as the thesis and is mainly written and submitted by university students. Below are the advantages of using ChatGPT for writing a dissertation.

Knowledge:  ChatGPT is trained with vast knowledge and provides dissertation writers access to knowledge. The more diverse knowledge, the better dissertation.

Saves Time:  Dissertation writing is time-consuming; however, ChatGPT can generate texts for you instantly. You can ask ChatGPT to write sections, paragraphs, and particular dissertation headings. Moreover, it can proofread and check your dissertation's grammar, style, and errors.

Assistance with writing:  Dissertation requires a lot of time and effort. Moreover, quality is an essential factor you should keep in mind while writing a dissertation; chatGPT suggests ways to improve your dissertation writing. Moreover, ChatGPT can proofread, rephrase and highlight writing errors for you.

Step-by-Step Guide: Create a ChatGPT Account

Using ChatGPT might be complex; thus, we are here to help you. Below are steps to create an account and write reports and theses or dissertations.

1. Setting Up ChatGPT

Now that you know ChatGPT and its benefits associated with reports, theses, and dissertation writing, it’s time to set up a ChatGPT account.

The first thing to do is to visit the official website of OpenAI’s artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.

After successfully landing on the official website of ChatGPT, you’ll see a login and sign-up option. You need to login in using your login credentials and progress further. However, if you do not have an account, click sign up, add an email, and create a password. Moreover, you’ll need to add your personal data, i.e., your date of birth, and verify your mobile number.

Afterward, you need to log in with the same email and password. OpenAI allows people to log in through Microsoft and Google accounts. If you have a valid Microsoft or Google account, simply click on login, click on Microsoft or Google, and log in to the selected account. Verify your phone number, and you’ll successfully log in to OpenAI to use ChatGPT.

After successfully logging in to OpenAI, you can start a new chat or use previous ones (if you logged in before and used chatbot). Click the new chat button on the left and start using the chatGPT. You can ask questions, gain knowledge, ask to proofread your work, suggest edits, and do more instantly.

If you are in a country where the use of ChatGPT is not allowed and you wish to register an account, you can refer to my other article " How to use Chatgpt ". It provides a detailed tutorial on how to register an account in such countries.

How to use ChatGPT to write a report

Setting up the ChatGPT account is easier than using it. Below we’ll guide you thoroughly on how to write a report using ChatGPT.

Setting up the Parameters

The first thing you must do is set parameters. What are the parameters? Parameters are framework or structure. You need to set up the report's parameters as they help control the report’s content and use other reports’ material in arguments. You need to tell ChatGPT where to start and let it know the limits of your report. In short, you need to provide ChatGPT with a structure under which it should generate your report.

Creating an Outline

Create an outline for your report. The outline may start with an introduction, having headings, bullet points, paragraphs, and more. You must provide an accurate outline to enable ChatGPT to write your report. This ensures that your report covers all the aspects in a good flow and all the required information. Without an outline, chatGPT may be unable to write it in a flow or may write something unnecessary for your report.

Writing the Report

The last thing is to ask ChatGPT to write the report for you. You need to set parameters, provide an outline, write a good prompt, and wait for ChatGPT to generate the report for you for a minute or two.

Topic: Impact of remote work on employee productivity

Purpose: To understand and examine the impact of remote work on the productivity of employees with findings and recommendations.

How to use ChatGPT to write a thesis or dissertation

As writing theses or dissertations is complex and requires time and energy, many people want to learn to use chatGPT to write them. Here’s how to write a thesis using Chatgpt.

Choosing a topic

After logging in to your OpenAI account, click on the new chat and choose a topic you want ChatGPT to write a thesis or dissertation on. This can be any topic that a normal human being can think of.

After deciding on a thesis or dissertation topic, you must create an outline. Creating an outline has its own benefits, as your theses will cover all aspects and topics in a flow, and the knowledge in the theses will be organized.

Writing the Thesis

Now that you have decided on a topic and created an outline, the next thing to do is write the thesis. Writing a good prompt will result in a good thesis. After writing a prompt for the thesis, click on the save and submit button, and wait a few minutes before ChatGPT can complete generating the thesis for you.

Topic: ChatGPT and its importance in conversational AI applications.

Purpose: To access and understand ChatGPT, its importance, benefits, and uses. Moreover, to examine its importance in conversational AI applications.

Now, you can use AI to assist you in generating a thesis, but it's important to note that you still need to carefully review the content generated by the AI to avoid any fabrication. Additionally, there are some universities that currently do not allow AI-generated theses. These universities may employ AI detection tools to check if a thesis was written by AI. In such cases, you can try using a paraphrasing tool to rewrite the AI-generated content until it passes the detection:

Recommended AI detection tools:  GPT-2 Output Detector

Recommended paraphrasing tools:  Quillbot

Perform another round of detection

Other AI or productivity tools recommended

There are various other AI or productivity tools that you can use instead of ChatGPT. Below are some.

1.  MidJourney

MidJourney is an artificial intelligence program that Mid Journey, Inc created and launched. The AI program can generate images and art using the prompts. You can use MidJourney for 20 free jobs to create or generate images for you on prompts. This software can help you create amazing images for your report and thesis. A thesis or report would look boring without images that engage the audience; hence you can use MidJourney AI to generate images for your thesis or report.

2.  WPS Office

WPS Office is a free office software that allows users to use Word, Excel, PPT, and PDF documents under a single roof. It’s free software that promotes creativity and boosts the productivity of users. The software has more than 500 million active users worldwide. The software lets users view, edit, translate, annotate, print, and do more. It’s compatible with Windows, MacOS, IOS, and Android.

Moreover, it’s free and has various advanced features and functions. The software enables users to write reports and a thesis using diverse tools. You can add bullet points, comments, and suggestions, highlight texts, and translate sentences and words. This is the best software for writing a report or dissertation, as it has templates for the report and thesis that can help you.

3. Chinchilla AI

Developed and launched by DeepMind in March 2022, this AI language model can better write your reports and thesis, requiring less computer power for interference and fine-tuning. The Chinchilla AI is said to outperform a number of traditional language models in terms of accuracy; hence, it can generate better and more accurate reports and a thesis for you. However, the software is currently in the testing phase and cannot be accessed by the general public.

A. Can I write a thesis with ChatGPT?

Yes. You can use ChatGPT to write a thesis. Start with choosing a topic, creating an outline, and writing a prompt to enable ChatGPT to generate a thesis on the topic for you.

B. Can I write a report with ChatGPT?

Yes. Writing a report using ChatGPT is possible and easy. All you need to do is set the report's parameters, create an outline, and submit a prompt to enable ChatGPT to generate the report.

C. How do you use ChatGPT to improve your writing?

ChatGPT can improve your writing by suggesting edits, proofreading, and suggesting new ideas. Moreover, ChatGPT can highlight errors too.

D. Can ChatGPT rewrite paragraphs?

Yes. ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can rewrite your texts better and make them more engaging and readable.

ChatGPT is a powerful artificial intelligence model that can help users with numerous tasks. So far, we have learned about ChatGPT and its benefits associated with report, thesis, or dissertation writing. Moreover, we learned how to write a thesis and report using ChatGPT. Setting up and using ChatGPT to write reports and thesis. The article also highlighted the best alternatives to ChatGPT for writing reports and thesis; one of them is  WPS Office .

• 1. How to Use WPS AI/Chatgpt to Write Essays: Guide for Beginners
• 2. How to Write A Report - A Guide to Report Format with Examples
• 3. How to Use Wps AI/Chatgpt to Write Technical Document: Guide for Beginners
• 4. How to Use WPS AI and ChatGPT to Analyze PDF Report
• 5. How to Write A thesis statement - Steps with Examples
• 6. Top 10 Best Business Report Chatgpt Prompt Example 2024

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Using ChatGPT to Write Your Thesis the Right Way

Who hasn’t heard about ChatGPT, the chatbot that took the internet by storm with a click!

For the lesser known, ChatGPT seems to represent a significant advance in AI writing technology, as it can respond to prompts and questions with very natural, human-like capabilities. It can write a Shakespeare-style poem for you about admission to law school, or offer five tips for taking better care of curly hair. In fact, ChatGPT is so good that  many students have already been using it to do their homework for them.

If you’ve already tried ChatGPT, you’ve probably been impressed by what it can do (I certainly have been). While it can miraculously write a full-length essay with you just commanding it with a single-line prompt, ChatGPT isn’t quite there when it comes to writing your thesis . However, it can be of some use in helping you research and write. Wonder how? Let’s find out.

Using ChatGPT for Thesis Research

There are a couple of ways that you can use ChatGPT to help you with thesis research. These include:

• Collating literature: You can use ChatGPT to research and gather information on a specific topic related to your thesis. The AI can provide reference articles, research papers, and other relevant sources regarding your subject.  
• Brainstorming ideas: If you're struggling to find a topic idea for your thesis, ChatGPT can help by generating new ideas or suggesting different angles to explore.  
• Providing feedback: ChatGPT can read your thesis and offer suggestions for improvement. (Well, I am not trusting a robot here!)

How Can You Find Relevant Information Using ChatGPT?

One thing to consider about AI, no matter how advanced, is that its outputs are only as good as its inputs. In other words, in order for AI to provide you with useful answers, you need to be specific about what you are looking for. 

If you want ChatGPT to find you some relevant information about your research topic, provide the program with a detailed prompt or background information about the topic. The more details you offer, the more targeted the results will be. Consider the following two prompts:

• I want to research how the pharmaceutical industry prices drugs.
• Can you find me some sources that explain how therapeutic novelty is priced into patent-protected pharmaceuticals?

If you type the first prompt into ChatGPT, the program will offer you some strategies for how to go about your research. It suggests consulting academic databases (Google Scholar, JSTOR) and specifies some journals that deal with relevant topics (Health Affairs, Journal of Health Economics). It also offers keywords that will help you find articles about the topic (“pharmaceutical pricing,” “drug costs,” etc.).

The second prompt, however, gives you an actual list of academic articles and a summary of each one. You can ask ChatGPT for more sources, and it will continue to offer specific article titles and summaries. 

How Can You Use ChatGPT for Thesis Writing?

Just like you can ask ChatGPT to help you find resources and narrow down your research topic, ChatGPT can also help you generate a thesis statement and write some of the trickier parts of your thesis. While I don’t personally recommend using ChatGPT’s writing word-for-word, it can be a helpful tool for getting started.

ChatGPT can help you generate a thesis statement if you provide it with some background information about your topic and are specific about the direction you would like your research to go. ChatGPT will also help you brainstorm thesis statements. For example, if you offer ChatGPT the words “pharmaceutical pricing,” “patent protection,” and “free trade agreements” and ask it to create a thesis statement, it provides the following:

"The impact of pharmaceutical pricing and patent protection on access to essential medicines is a critical issue in the context of free trade agreements, as it creates a trade-off between the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies and the public health needs of individuals."

Pretty impressive, right? You can also ask it to generate topic sentences, supporting paragraphs, introductions, or conclusions for your paper. Often, you don’t want to use what it produces word-for-word, but it can absolutely get you started and help you think of ideas.   

So, Why Can’t ChatGPT Just Write My Thesis For Me?

You might be wondering at this point why ChatGPT can’t just write your whole thesis for you. After all, it can research, proofread, edit, brainstorm, and fix logical problems. So what can’t it do?

Well, ChatGPT has a few limitations that are pretty important. First, ChatGPT doesn’t provide you with actual sources when it writes something. For example, if you ask how drugs are priced, it will answer, but it won’t provide you with sources for that answer unless you ask it specifically. If you copy an answer from ChatGPT word-for-word, you’ll likely end up plagiarizing another source.

As mentioned above, AI outputs are only as good as their inputs. ChatGPT gets its information from a variety of sources, and not all of them are accurate. Moreover, the program is incapable of distinguishing between correct and incorrect information. So, you should always verify any information the program provides you.

Finally, ChatGPT can have some issues understanding the vocabulary that is very specific to a narrow subject or context. For this reason, it may not always be able to provide you with the assistance you need. But as an AI model, it is learning all the time, so these gaps in knowledge may be filled later.

ChatGPT is a great tool that can help you research and write. It can even help you find sources, edit your work, and check for plagiarism. But AI is only as good as its sources, and ChatGPT can provide erroneous information. Therefore, you should consider ChatGPT a helpful tool rather than a replacement for academic work. So yes, ChatGPT can absolutely help write your thesis, but can’t own it up like you can!

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How to Use ChatGPT for Research and Essays

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For better or worse, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become a big part of our lives. It’s become integral to gathering information, researching topics, and creating written works. And frankly, not using it might put you at a disadvantage academically.

However, this AI is not flawless; there is a method to use it to help with your essays and research. Using it the right way will help you avoid plagiarism issues or inaccurate information. Here, we’ll show you how to use ChatGPT to write an essay ethically, so it comes out as a quality, factual, and original piece.

1. Draw Your Outline Without ChatGPT

Assuming you already have an idea for your project, the first thing you should do before you hop on ChatGPT’s website is to prepare your thesis and outline without using AI. It’s a vital step to making sure the core of your essay actually comes from you.

If you use ChatGPT to prompt an outline for you, it could promote idea laziness, and you will find ChatGPT’s suggestions may have replaced the ones you could have produced on your own. So, get a piece of paper or a blank word processor page and create an outline for your essay.

Also, ChatGPT will avoid controversial topics—even in an outline. Therefore, you might find yourself with an outline missing vital pieces of historical sections if you rely on it. This bias is one of the major problems with OpenAI’s ChatGPT .

2. Prompt ChatGPT to Draw a Parallel Outline

Before you begin this section, if this is your first time using ChatGPT, you should read our guide on how to use ChatGPT . It will help you with creating an account and defining its capabilities. Once that’s out of the way, you can move on to the next step.

Now that you have an original outline, it doesn’t matter how basic it looks; you can use ChatGPT to create another outline. Craft a prompt with this template:

ChatGPT’s result is far more detailed than our outline. Here, you should adopt the parts of ChatGPT’s outline you would like to integrate into your own. Combine the best of the two and flesh out an outline that will guide you best as you write.

3. Create a ChatGPT Prompt for Each Section

Now that you have an outline with sections, you can begin to hack away at it section by section. Start with your introduction, where you will include your thesis statement. Ask ChatGPT to create multiple thesis statements on your idea, and choose the one that best encapsulates the major point you’re trying to communicate in your essay.

You can do something similar for all the other sections as well. Tell the AI to generate written pieces on your section topics. Don’t forget to add that it communicates the point in the tone you want. In most cases, essays should sound academic. Therefore, our prompt for each section looked like this:

Do not just copy and paste the information it generates; the next step is a vital second part of this methodology.

4. Confirm the Information With a Reputable Source

As you begin to write, you must check if the information you’re getting from ChatGPT is indeed correct. You must do this because ChatGPT occasionally hallucinates , coming up with its own facts and making up sources when you ask it to direct you to where it got its information. In some cases, it blatantly refuses to tell you at all where it got its data.

The free version of ChatGPT is not actively connected to the internet and cannot fetch information after September 2021. If you need this functionality, then it could be time to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus —especially if this is a tool you will be using heavily for work or school.

The bottom line is that you should use a reputable source (such as a book from an authority or an official website) to support every important statement you put down. You can also learn how to use Google to fact-check information .

5. Use ChatGPT for Examples and Breakdowns

It’s counterproductive to write about ideas that you don’t even understand yourself. When you reach a part of your essay that you don’t properly understand, you should go to ChatGPT and have it broken down for you.

That’s really the one thing you can count on ChatGPT to do in this process. It has good skill in crafting useful examples and explaining complicated ideas in a form you can easily understand. A popular way of phrasing a prompt to make ChatGPT explain something complicated is adding “explain like I’m five” to your prompt.

Here we used ChatGPT to break down hip and elbow dysplasia conditions in a way that is easier to understand. And it used analogies like jigsaw puzzles to paint a clearer image of what it might look like.

6. Write the Essay Yourself

As we’ve stated earlier, under no condition should you ask ChatGPT to write your whole essay for you. Not only is that lazy and deceitful, but it could also open you up to plagiarism and submitting incorrect information.

Ensure that every line in your essay is typed with your hands. Besides, if you’re writing an academic essay where you must cite sources, you will still need to corroborate all the points you’ve made with a corresponding authority. That means you’ll have to go and fact-check everything ChatGPT has written and find a corroborating source.

This could even take more time than just writing it yourself because the AI could have hallucinated some of its facts, leading you on a wild goose chase as you try to find a citation for something that doesn’t exist.

Lastly, ChatGPT doesn’t match the nuanced knowledge of a human professional in heavily specialized fields or journals that need up-to-date information. Reading a book or article by an expert, internalizing it, and writing it in your own words will give you far better results than relying on ChatGPT.

7. Polish the Style and Citation With ChatGPT

After writing, you can paste portions of your essay and ask ChatGPT to shorten, lengthen, or optimize the style. ChatGPT is good at mimicking popular styles, and you can use that to your advantage. If you want your writing to sound a little more professional, it can help rephrase it.

If you’re having trouble with citation styles and how to integrate them into your essay, you can present your essay to ChatGPT, give it your sources, and ask it to weld them together for you.

ChatGPT Is a Tool, Not a Solution

You can’t “ChatGPT” away academic or professional work; you must use it the same way you would use a tool. Take a calculator, for instance; it doesn’t replace the mathematician but improves the mathematician. You should use ChatGPT the same way a mathematician will use a calculator: for the boring, repetitive, rote work.

Let the ideas and story come from you and your experiences. And if you want to keep using ChatGPT as a student, make sure you know what you shouldn't do.

• Artificial Intelligence

I used ChatGPT to research my dissertation — here’s why it’s fine

A banker, a health data scientist and a London gallery assistant walk into a pub. They are just my friends (sorry, no joke here) and we were only talking about one thing: ChatGPT .

They’d been using the eerily-conversational AI chatbot to (varyingly): produce a £500,000 government grant application, understand the global economic market, and write exhibition leaflets in record time. I’d just used it to help research my fashion journalism degree dissertation — and this, apparently, was the most contentious confession of them all.

I want to point out that I did not use ChatGPT to actually write any words. I just found that it was a much more efficient search tool than Google (Google recognizes this threat; in December, after one month of ChatGPT attracted one million users, management declared a “code red”). Call me lazy, but it helped me produce an initial list of books and academics for my research. I still read the damn texts (which I found in the library) but that short conversation with ChatGPT saved me hours of trawling through the Wikipedia. This is how it differs to everyone’s favourite search engine: it can provide an answer or explanation, rather than 2,304,780 results.

At one point, I required academic concepts to back up my argument. So I asked it and sat back as it mused over the status theories by Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu. However, while the answer or explanation might be succinct, it’s not always correct. The tool sometimes just makes things up. You can easily weed out the fact from the fiction — though, at that point, we’re back in ‘trawling Google’ territory. Other problems include its database stopping at 2021, so any current affairs are off the cards, and it is a product of the data it is fed with, so prejudice might alter the results. I recognise admitting all this remains taboo.

Use of the tool is rife among students

The ethical hoo-ha of AI in education started in the US, where ChatGPT’s arrival caused uproar, and publications such as The Atlantic made statements like “The College Essay Is Dead”. But use of the tool is rife among students, and more are undoubtedly coming. In the same way we can safely assume calculators and spell check are used by students working in unsupervised conditions, so too will kids today be turning to artificial intelligence to help with homework.

Better to start thinking of solutions, than shaking heads in disapproval. As one meme puts it: AI won’t steal your job, someone who uses AI will.

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How to Write a Great Essay With ChatGPT Without Cheating

Collagery / Shutterstock

AI can assist with outlining, research, and editing, but can't write the essay for you.

Seek clarification on AI usage from professors to ensure compliance with honor codes.

Utilize AI like ChatGPT and Perplexity for research and outline suggestions, but write the essay yourself.

Like any tool, AI can be a big help to a writer. It can come up with an effective outline, suggest sources or a research topic, and help edit. However, it can't write the essay for you.

Not only would that be a violation of many honor codes and ethical guidelines, but it would also result in a terrible essay! Essays written by ChatGPT are often riddled with factual inaccuracies, comical misunderstandings, and a thesis with enough twists and turns to resemble a preschooler's self-portrait.

When In Doubt, Seek Help Out

If a strict Honor Code is in play, it might be wise to shoot a quick email to the professor or teacher in charge. It never hurts to confirm that AI tools are acceptable as long as all the writing is human. Schools, colleges, and universities are all grappling with how to deal with the existence of AI writing tools, and there's probably some form of official policy you can access, or at the very least individual professors and teachers will have their own policies in place.

Find Your Favorite AI

ChatGPT is a great place to start. It is a good all-purpose AI, and there are also custom GPTs available that might suit your needs as well. Or, you could use different AI for each stage of the essay writing process. I think Perplexity AI is the best for research. It will provide sources and you can ask follow-up questions. You also have the option of running a local AI, if your computer has the specs for it .

No matter where you start, always fact-check your AI. Available AI technology is getting better every day, but it still makes mistakes. Frequently. Some mistakes are obvious, and others are not. Using AI to gather research is a quick and efficient way to get started, but you still may have to crack open a book or two. AI works best as a tool to support the human element. Wherever possible, ask the LLM to provide sources for its claims, and the follow up on those sources to ensure they exist and actually say what the LLM states.

Write an Effective Prompt

A good prompt is detailed and specific. An extreme example would be:

AI is a tool that gives only as good as it gets. The first prompt will result in a mishmash of unrelated sources. The second will produce an excellent starting point for an essay because the human has done the complex analytical thinking. The AI can then do what it does best.

Have Your LLM Suggest an Outline

Entering the above prompt into Perplexity AI gave a pretty good answer. After a quick fact check, the next step is to have your LLM suggest an outline. To do this, you'll need to come up with a thesis on your own. If you're struggling, ask the AI to suggest a few based on those sources. In my opinion, thesis writing is not a strength of AI, but its suggestions might point you in the right direction.

To get an outline from Perplexity, I prompted:

Another option would be to copy/paste the relevant portion from Perplexity AI into ChatGPT and enter the same prompt, this time referencing the "above information."

Write the Essay Yourself!

Armed with the sources, topic, thesis, and outline, be sure to write the actual content yourself! This is the most important step to avoid cheating. You're using the groundwork done by the LLM and verified by you as a foundation for the essay. Now it's up to you to write a coherent piece in your own voice, making arguments you've come up with yourself. Remember, you aren't just being graded on your ability to write, but also on your ability to think, and that's what you must demonstrate in your essay.

Be Careful with AI Editors

Use AI to help make grammar and spelling corrections, or ask it to make content suggestions, but don't allow it to re-write your content . AI tends to write every sentence in active voice which is usually considered superior to passive voice. However, most humans don't write exclusively in active voice. Therefore, AI detectors take this into account when making their determinations.

This is just one example of how seemingly subtle changes suggested by AI can increase the risk of your work getting identified as AI-written . Furthermore, it is still up for debate how much AI can change a sentence before it becomes AI-written. Grammarly AI underlines grammar or spelling errors in red, and other issues in other colors. So, in Grammarly, I only fix those red errors. That said, asking ChatGPT or an AI editor for a few suggestions on how to improve your essay might be a safe way to check your work.

A Word on AI Detectors

The best way to make sure your work will pass an AI detector is to pre-emptively put your work into an AI detector to see if it passes. Generally speaking, AI detectors do not work . Whether or not a writer uses AI, theres a chance they will judged by an AI detector, I'd suggest they make sure their work will pass as human. Human-written work can easily get labeled as AI-written, and writers suffer the consequences. If an AI detector claims your original work is AI-written, let it identify which passages are "AI written," and re-write them until it is satisfied.

Finally, let me say it one more time: be sure to write all the content yourself, and get clarity on AI policies before using AI tools.

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Current Status of ChatGPT Use in Medical Education: Potentials, Challenges, and Strategies

1 Clinical Nursing Teaching and Research Section, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China

2 Xiangya School of Nursing, Central South University, Changsha, China

Huiting Weng

Yuanyuan luo.

ChatGPT, a generative pretrained transformer, has garnered global attention and sparked discussions since its introduction on November 30, 2022. However, it has generated controversy within the realms of medical education and scientific research. This paper examines the potential applications, limitations, and strategies for using ChatGPT. ChatGPT offers personalized learning support to medical students through its robust natural language generation capabilities, enabling it to furnish answers. Moreover, it has demonstrated significant use in simulating clinical scenarios, facilitating teaching and learning processes, and revitalizing medical education. Nonetheless, numerous challenges accompany these advancements. In the context of education, it is of paramount importance to prevent excessive reliance on ChatGPT and combat academic plagiarism. Likewise, in the field of medicine, it is vital to guarantee the timeliness, accuracy, and reliability of content generated by ChatGPT. Concurrently, ethical challenges and concerns regarding information security arise. In light of these challenges, this paper proposes targeted strategies for addressing them. First, the risk of overreliance on ChatGPT and academic plagiarism must be mitigated through ideological education, fostering comprehensive competencies, and implementing diverse evaluation criteria. The integration of contemporary pedagogical methodologies in conjunction with the use of ChatGPT serves to enhance the overall quality of medical education. To enhance the professionalism and reliability of the generated content, it is recommended to implement measures to optimize ChatGPT’s training data professionally and enhance the transparency of the generation process. This ensures that the generated content is aligned with the most recent standards of medical practice. Moreover, the enhancement of value alignment and the establishment of pertinent legislation or codes of practice address ethical concerns, including those pertaining to algorithmic discrimination, the allocation of medical responsibility, privacy, and security. In conclusion, while ChatGPT presents significant potential in medical education, it also encounters various challenges. Through comprehensive research and the implementation of suitable strategies, it is anticipated that ChatGPT’s positive impact on medical education will be harnessed, laying the groundwork for advancing the discipline and fostering the development of high-caliber medical professionals.

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human cognitive capacities using computer programming, allowing robots to emulate human thought and behavior [ 1 ]. AI generation is the automated creation of various content formats, such as text, photos, video, and audio, using AI technologies. This approach generates content using language, visuals, and multimodal macro models [ 2 ]. Among these technologies, ChatGPT stands out as a sophisticated, large-scale language model developed by OpenAI, which has reached stage 4.0, the most recent iteration of the OpenAI system. ChatGPT, which has been trained on large amounts of textual data, is designed to participate in conversational exchanges with users while responding contextually to their prompts [ 3 ]. Particularly, ChatGPT has advanced capabilities in natural language processing, logical reasoning, task execution, information retrieval, picture analysis, content development, and other areas [ 4 ]. Moreover, ChatGPT provides a vast range of services accessible through global registration, facilitating its integration across various domains.

In the field of education, the introduction of ChatGPT has generated considerable interest and prompted in-depth discussions. Its exceptional generating capabilities offer new avenues for scholarly research, increased learning, classroom improvement, and knowledge sharing [ 5 ]. The incorporation of ChatGPT into medical education has become a major focus, with the goal of combining the advancements of education and medicine. In order to provide a well-informed assessment of the potential and limitations of integrating ChatGPT into medical education, this research aims to examine both the technology’s capabilities and the challenges it may present. Furthermore, tactics are put out to support the smooth integration of technology and medicine.

Status of ChatGPT in Medical Education

In this study, we searched the Web of Science database using specific terms related to ChatGPT and education or medical science within the timeframe of January 2022 to December 2024. The search formula is (“Chat generative pretrained transformer” OR “chat GPT” OR ChatGPT OR chat- GPT OR GPT-3.5 OR GPT-4.0”) AND (Education OR educate OR educator OR Students, Medical OR medical science OR medicine OR health care OR health science). We used CiteSpace v6.1R6 (64-bit) Basic to analyze the posted keywords [ 6 ]. The basic parameters used in CiteSpace were configured as follows: the time partition ranged from January 2022 to December 2024, with a one-time slice; the node selection criterion was set to k=25 for the g-index in each time slice, while the remaining parameters were kept at default settings. The top 7 keywords, ranked by frequency in the keyword network, are natural language processing, impact, academic integrity, AI in medicine, writing, health literacy, and health care professionals ( Figure 1 ), and the top 10 countries by publication volume are United States, India, China, Australia, England, Germany, Canada, Italy, Spain, and United Arab Emirates ( Figure 2 ).

Keywords of ChatGPT in medicine and education.

National publications of ChatGPT in medicine and education.

Next, we will analyze the impact of ChatGPT and focus on its advantages, disadvantages, and coping strategies in the areas of education, academics, clinical decision-making, and health education.

A summary of the functions of ChatGPT and its potential role in the field of medical education is shown in Figure 3 .

Functions of ChatGPT and the potentials of medical education.

Education Support

Academic assistance.

ChatGPT excels in both language understanding and content generation. It relies on semantic understanding and reasoning to decipher user intent through mutual dialog. In addition, by applying deep learning techniques, ChatGPT efficiently retrieves information from a variety of sources to provide consumers with reliable answers [ 7 ]. As a result, ChatGPT emerges as an invaluable resource for medical students, especially in helping them understand complex ideas. ChatGPT improves topic understanding by providing examples and conducting text analyses [ 8 ]. Furthermore, ChatGPT serves an important role in alleviating academic difficulty among medical students [ 9 ]. With its ability to produce and answer questions as well as assist with revision tasks, ChatGPT can help medical students complete coursework, assess the quality of their coursework, and reinforce previously learned concepts [ 10 ]. Serving as a personalized tutor, it develops customized learning programs and time management strategies based on individual interests and learning preferences [ 11 ]. In addition, renowned for its prowess in research and writing, ChatGPT contributes significantly to academic endeavors [ 12 ]. On one hand, it assists students in comprehensively exploring research literature, gaining a preliminary understanding of current research trends [ 13 ]. On the other hand, ChatGPT aids in structuring thesis frameworks and generating writing prompts, while also offering grammar and spelling checks to enhance writing proficiency and quality [ 14 ].

Scenario Simulation

ChatGPT has superior social features that allow it to replicate clinical settings for medical students through situational simulation and role-playing [ 15 ]. This functionality assists the transition of medical students from a theoretical to a clinical attitude. Furthermore, ChatGPT provides the potential to faithfully mimic clinical circumstances while dynamically adapting to changes in patients’ conditions [ 16 ]. This function lets students gain practical experience managing unexpected medical problems in simulated contexts, thereby improving their preparedness and psychological fortitude.

Curriculum Development

ChatGPT is crucial in educational curriculum development since it helps teachers enhance their logical thinking and task performance skills [ 17 ]. It assists teachers create lesson plans, course handouts, and lesson plan content, which accelerates curriculum development [ 13 ]. For example, we asked ChatGPT to create a teaching plan on pressure ulcer care, and the resulting content is presented in Figure 4 . Upon assessing the information, it is obvious that ChatGPT could generate core teaching plan content. However, teachers must supplement with more precise and detailed knowledge points, as well as validate the created information.

Lesson plan for pressure ulcer care.

Furthermore, ChatGPT promotes innovation in teaching approaches by enabling scenario-based learning, role-playing, and the integration of diverse educational resources [ 18 ]. Recognizing the value of continuous pedagogical innovation, teachers are encouraged to apply the capabilities of AI, such as ChatGPT, alongside traditional teaching methods [ 19 ]. This integration allows for constant advancement in teaching approaches, which improves the effectiveness of teaching practices and enables educators to fulfill their instructional responsibilities more efficiently.

Clinical Support

ChatGPT plays a pivotal role in clinical support, standardizing procedures, aiding in disease diagnosis, and delivering health education. In terms of literature search and operational procedures, ChatGPT is capable of accessing the most recent literature and clinical guidelines [ 20 ]. This capability enables the provision of evidence-based best practices to health care professionals, facilitating the identification of current operational procedures and the enhancement of operational protocols [ 21 ]. Regarding disease diagnosis, ChatGPT can analyze patient data and test results, assisting doctors in diagnosing conditions and offering treatment recommendations [ 22 ]. In addition, it supports health care professionals in telemedicine by engaging in real-time communication with patients and providing remote diagnosis and treatment suggestions [ 23 ]. Moreover, ChatGPT serves as a valuable tool for patient health education. It can translate health education materials into multiple languages and deliver personalized health education using straightforward language, thereby aiding patients in understanding condition guidance and adopting healthier lifestyles [ 24 ].

Overall, ChatGPT enhances medical education by integrating essential functionalities into clinical support through standardized processes, aiding in disease diagnosis, and delivering health education [ 25 ]. This not only empowers health care professionals to provide medical services more efficiently but also provides students with a comprehensive and enriching learning experience, fostering the growth of medical professionals with practical skills and professional competence.

Disciplinary Development

The integration of AI and medicine represents a future frontier, characterized by the convergence of technological innovation and advancements in medical care [ 26 ]. This cross-disciplinary collaboration not only promotes technical advancement but also drives medical treatment to better intelligence and efficiency. Furthermore, it promotes the development of comprehensive capabilities in academic institutions that can navigate the junction of medicine and technology. In the future, coordinated activities in medical and technical domains have the potential to expedite technological innovation and move the field of medicine forward. This collaboration promises to usher in a new era of health care marked by innovation and efficiency, efficiently meeting society’s changing health needs [ 27 ]. ChatGPT advances medical education by enabling interdisciplinary collaboration and encouraging innovation at the confluence of medicine and technology.

Learning Dependency and Uneven Education

While ChatGPT can serve as a valuable learning aid by providing answers, assisting in understanding complex concepts, and offering personalized tutoring, excessive reliance on it can yield detrimental consequences in the long term [ 10 ]. Overdependence on ChatGPT may result in the erosion of critical thinking skills, creativity, and self-directed learning capabilities. The ease of obtaining answers quickly through ChatGPT may foster complacency among students, discouraging them from engaging in reflective problem-solving [ 28 ]. To mitigate this issue, students should proactively disclose which parts of their work were aided by ChatGPT, allowing teachers to assess the overall quality of assignments more accurately [ 10 ]. Failure to do so may lead to the perpetuation of an “information cocoon,” wherein students are only exposed to solutions that align with their existing preferences, hindering the exploration of diverse perspectives. Furthermore, the widespread adoption of ChatGPT may exacerbate educational inequalities. Developing and underdeveloped countries may lack the necessary technological infrastructure and resources to fully leverage ChatGPT, widening the educational gap between these regions and more developed countries [ 29 ]. Hence, it is crucial to address these challenges to ensure equitable access to educational resources and opportunities worldwide.

Copying and Plagiarism

When tackling assignments or final papers, students often seek to leverage technology to address challenges, enhance content, and elevate the overall quality of their work. ChatGPT, with its exceptional social capabilities and vast knowledge base, offers students the opportunity to obtain answers, prepare for exams, outline papers, and even complete them through mutual dialogue [ 29 ]. However, such practices are commonly perceived as copying answers and plagiarism, thereby contravening the fundamental principles of scientific research and academic integrity [ 30 ]. Moreover, ChatGPT encounters issues related to the fabrication of reference citations, as it may generate citations without verifiable sources, making it difficult for users to locate the original literature on academic platforms [ 31 ]. This inability to access and verify the sources provided by ChatGPT poses significant obstacles to maintaining academic integrity and conducting rigorous scholarly research [ 32 ].

It is noteworthy that Som Biswas, a radiologist in the United States, has authored 16 papers with ChatGPT, resulting in the publication of 6 articles across 4 journals [ 33 - 38 ]. Nevertheless, a thorough examination of the content by experts in the field has revealed significant inaccuracies, with all references found to be fictitious [ 39 ]. The editors of the journal Nature stated that while ChatGPT cannot be held accountable for the content and integrity of scientific studies, its contributions can be recognized [ 40 ]. Similarly, scientific journal editors claimed that using ChatGPT-generated content without adequate citations may be considered plagiarism, while contributions to ChatGPT might be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section [ 40 ]. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop clearer criteria for distinguishing between authorized use and plagiarism when using ChatGPT assistance in academic research.

Insufficient Factualness, Timeliness, and Interpretability

ChatGPT’s credibility is not absolute, as it grapples with issues, such as illusion, poor timeliness, and interpretability, akin to other large language models [ 41 ]. Despite its impressive performance, ChatGPT has been known to generate convincing yet erroneous information, undermining its reliability, particularly in the health care domain. Furthermore, because its training data is only up to January 2022, its conclusions may not always be up to date [ 12 ]. Furthermore, ChatGPT lacks specialist medical knowledge and may struggle to understand complicated illness relationships [ 42 ]. Its algorithms function as a black box, providing findings without divulging the underlying mechanism, creating ambiguity about their applicability for health care applications [ 43 ]. While doctors may leverage ChatGPT for disease diagnosis to enhance clinical accuracy, the absence of evidence supporting diagnosis and treatment may leave patients questioning the reliability of the results.

Ethical Issues

While ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize medical education, it also raises a number of ethical concerns. It is of the utmost importance to address issues, such as algorithmic discrimination, the allocation of responsibility for medical malpractice involving ChatGPT, and the safeguarding of data privacy and security [ 44 , 45 ].

ChatGPT displays algorithmic biases, including gender stereotypes, racial discrimination, and cultural insensitivity [ 46 ]. These biases not only undermine the model’s accuracy, fairness, and reliability, but they also perpetuate disparities in clinical health care [ 29 ]. Furthermore, ChatGPT’s inadequacies, such as inadequate timeliness, interpretability, and accuracy, increase the risk of incorrect clinical diagnoses, treatment protocols, and the transmission of incorrect information, risking patient care [ 47 ]. Furthermore, safeguarding patient privacy is critical in the therapeutic arena, mandating strict safeguards for sensitive patient data. Given that ChatGPT may share information, there may be a possibility of privacy breaches, as patient data are temporarily stored on Open AI’s servers [ 48 ]. This raises concerns regarding the potential leaking of patients’ private information, such as personal details, medical conditions, and examination results, while using ChatGPT for assisted diagnosis, treatment, and health education [ 49 ]. Hence, there is an urgent need to establish practical ethical norms to harness the value of ChatGPT while ensuring alignment with scientific and technological advancements and societal development goals. These norms should address concerns related to algorithmic biases, data privacy, accuracy, and accountability to foster responsible and ethical use of ChatGPT in health care and other domains [ 50 ].

Undermining Communication and Trust

Currently, research on the applications of ChatGPT for clinical communication and health education is limited, and the outcomes are not substantial [ 51 ]. Health care professionals’ humanistic care qualities, as well as the emotional rapport they build with patients, are critical components of disease treatment [ 49 ]. While ChatGPT can aid in accomplishing clinical tasks, it lacks emotion, empathy, and the capacity to perceive patient emotions. Therefore, health care professionals cannot depend on ChatGPT for communication and health education with patients [ 52 ]. This necessitates health care professionals integrating emotional value into patient interactions, fostering a more holistic approach to care, and combining the rationality of AI with the empathetic senses of health care providers. By striking a balance between technological assistance and human compassion, health care professionals can cultivate a patient-centric environment that addresses both medical needs and emotional well-being.

Table 1 summarizes the challenges and strategies of ChatGPT.

The challenges and strategies of ChatGPT.

a XAI: explainable artificial intelligence .

Prevention of Overdependence

Delineate the relationship between individuals and chatgpt.

Humans remain the primary agents in social activities, with ChatGPT serving as a useful tool to aid them [ 53 ]. While students may use the answers and suggestions provided by ChatGPT, it is crucial that they engage in critical thinking and judgment to arrive at their conclusions [ 54 ].

Apprise the Limitations of ChatGPT

Despite students’ optimism toward ChatGPT [ 55 ], educators must underscore that it is not a panacea and guide students to adopt an objective and cautious stance [ 30 ]. Educators can focus on nurturing students’ independent thinking, creative problem-solving abilities, and information literacy skills. This includes cultivating habits of reading and lifelong learning, fostering critical thinking and effective communication, and enhancing independent problem-solving skills [ 21 ]. The ultimate goal is to empower students to transition from mere questioners to creators and decision makers [ 56 ].

Optimize Curriculum Design

This can include introducing a teacher-student-machine interaction paradigm for instruction, giving courses on AI, and experimenting with new assignment forms and evaluation methodologies [ 57 ].

• Integrating ChatGPT into the medical curriculum: problem-based learning allows students to analyze clinical problems, encouraging proactive thinking, and comparing their own ideas to those generated by ChatGPT [ 58 ]. This comparison encourages students to reflect on the strengths and limitations of both human-generated and AI-generated solutions, fostering a deeper understanding of clinical reasoning and decision-making processes. In addition to integrating ChatGPT with problem-based learning, it can also be combined with other instructional methods, such as case-based learning, team-based learning, group meetings, etc [ 59 ]. By using diverse teaching modalities, critical thinking and innovative thinking among students can be nurtured.
• Update the methods for assessing assignments and grades. Educators might replace typical writing tasks with presentation reports, oral debates, group discussions, and peer reviews [ 17 ]. Encouraging students to preserve transcripts of their interactions using ChatGPT can also help [ 31 ]. Rather than relying on ChatGPT for direct responses, emphasizing knowledge and competency allows students to interact more deeply and think critically.

Academic Integrity

Guide proper use.

ChatGPT has distinct advantages, and it is critical not to restrict students from using it totally, but rather to guide them to use right [ 60 ]. Thus, improving the quality of student learning is critical. In terms of educational orientation, teachers ought to lead students toward developing appropriate values about science and technology. Prioritizing education on academic integrity is crucial, with a focus on reiterating the basic principles and ethical boundaries of scientific research, enhancing awareness of academic ethics and integrity, and deepening reverence for science. In addition, organizations and institutions can conduct academic integrity seminars to educate individuals about the ethical use of ChatGPT [ 57 ]. Educators should also educate students about the consequences and repercussions of violating research integrity.

Evaluate and Review the Content

The text produced by ChatGPT should be evaluated and reviewed to ensure academic accuracy and integrity [ 61 ]. Developing specialized software or using fake text detection technologies created particularly to recognize text generated by ChatGPT can help detect whether a communication contains faked or nonsensical text [ 62 ]. To ensure that the answers are correct, they must be approached with reasonable skepticism and verified for accuracy. It is also vital to clearly identify which pieces came from ChatGPT. For example, using plagiarism detection software allows students to ensure that the information generated by ChatGPT does not infringe on other people’s academic work, lowering the danger of plagiarism and ensuring the accuracy and authenticity of cited references [ 63 ].

Develop Guidelines and Regulatory Mechanisms

Stakeholders can collaborate to create relevant recommendations for the standardized use of ChatGPT [ 64 ]. Simultaneously, implementing a corresponding management system can enhance the management approach by providing training, education, assessment, review, feedback, and improvement activities to ensure the ethical use of ChatGPT [ 65 ].

Model Enhancement

Enhance and tailor training methodologies.

While ChatGPT boasts significant power, its susceptibility to hallucination poses a challenge to its credibility. However, effective mitigation of this issue and refinement of its specialization could unlock limitless potential in the medical domain [ 66 ]. Using regular input of data into the model or using transfer learning can effectively augment a vast, diverse, accurate, and high-quality training dataset, thereby enhancing the performance of ChatGPT [ 67 ].

Improve Accuracy

Through fine-tuning or reinforcement learning, the process of continuously incorporating user feedback, collecting and analyzing suggestions, and reintegrating ChatGPT resources is achieved to sustainably improve ChatGPT performance [ 62 ]. Collecting feedback on ChatGPT responses allows for iterative adjustments and enhancements to the model’s accuracy [ 68 ]. Timely updates of data, especially for time-sensitive matters, facilitate a more accurate understanding of queries and the generation of relevant answers. For instance, regular updates on clinical data, research findings, expert consensus, and medical guidelines can effectively inform clinical practice.

Improve Transparency and Interpretability

ChatGPT's transparency can be improved by creating visual interfaces, generating human-machine interaction code, and using explainable AI techniques [ 8 ]. Increased openness builds confidence between humans and robots. Not only does it help medical workers understand the model’s decision-making process, but it also allows for improved evaluation and interpretation of generated outcomes, lowering the risk of medical errors [ 69 ]. Incorporating transparency measures is thus critical for increasing ChatGPT’s use in medical settings.

Emphasizing Ethical Issues

Value alignment is a contentious subject in ChatGPT, with the goal of aligning its capabilities and actions with human objectives, ethical standards, and values in order to promote safety and confidence in human-ChatGPT cooperation. The top 3 ethical concerns related to ChatGPT include algorithmic discrimination, medical liability allocation, and privacy and security difficulties [ 49 ].

Address Algorithmic Discrimination

To address algorithmic bias, on the one hand, incorporating diverse and balanced samples for large-scale training can enhance ChatGPT’s fairness awareness [ 70 ]. On the other hand, using explainable AI can help identify biased patterns in ChatGPT while implementing fair models [ 8 ]. Furthermore, continuous review and quality improvement can minimize gender and racial discrimination in the health care sector to the greatest extent possible [ 44 ].

Assign Responsibility

Clear responsibility allocation is paramount when collaborating with ChatGPT for clinical disease diagnosis and health education. In other words, ensuring maximum safety in the clinical use of ChatGPT requires explicit delineation of responsibilities. Health care professionals using ChatGPT for decision support should actively engage in its decision-making process and critically assess its recommendations. Collaboration between health care professionals and ChatGPT can enhance decision-making accuracy [ 71 ]. Patients’ right to information should be upheld. Organizations and institutions must ensure ChatGPT’s responsible participation in treatment and adherence to ethical standards [ 72 ].

Protecting Personal Privacy and Information Data

Measures such as analogously asking ChatGPT questions to conceal original motives, implementing manual review mechanisms for uploaded information, data encryption, and anonymization can mitigate privacy risks [ 73 ]. Compliance with privacy laws and regulations is essential to secure patient privacy and medical information, ensuring data handling and storage integrity [ 43 ]. Establishing clear guidelines, ethical frameworks, and institutional norms for data collection, storage, and use is crucial [ 66 ].

Irreplaceability of Medical Personnel and Educators

Humanistic care and emotional support from health care professionals.

While ChatGPT has the potential to enhance access to primary health care in underdeveloped regions and streamline repetitive tasks for medical staff, it cannot be considered a substitute for health care professionals in any capacity [ 13 ]. ChatGPT is devoid of the attributes that are typically associated with independent consciousness, ethical standards, emotional empathy, and the capacity to anticipate unforeseen circumstances. The interpersonal communication between health care professionals and patients, as well as the emotional support and humanistic care that are provided in person, cannot be replicated by ChatGPT [ 74 ]. Furthermore, medical professionals provide invaluable empirical assistance and support to patients based on their clinical experience, which enhances the quality of clinical services. This is a capability that ChatGPT does not possess [ 74 ]. Consequently, ChatGPT should be regarded as a valuable adjunct to the work of medical personnel in clinical settings, rather than as a replacement for human health care providers.

Teacher’s Quality Education

Education fosters individual growth, community advancement, and the continuation of human civilization. While ChatGPT has effectively helped to progress education by equalizing and enriching instructional resources, it is still only a tool for teachers, and not a replacement [ 75 ]. Teachers have distinct powers that ChatGPT lacks. They practice student-centered teaching and help kids develop moral qualities and abilities like ideals, beliefs, values, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and creativity. Furthermore, people are naturally social animals that require interpersonal interactions to thrive and find spiritual fulfillment.

In conclusion, despite the benefits of ChatGPT, technology cannot replace humans in health care and education. Our individual features and capacities allow us to maintain social value in an era of rapid developments in AI.

ChatGPT has demonstrated considerable potential in medical education, but it has also introduced a number of thought-provoking difficulties. As ChatGPT advances, it may present new obstacles and opportunities. On a worldwide basis, cultural diversity is under peril. ChatGPT disseminates information based on the training data it gets, making well-known and popular information more easily shared and transferred. However, this has the tendency to marginalize niche or local cultures and languages, hence reducing cultural variety. Roles in the health care sector may change. The increased implementation of automation and intelligent technologies may result in the displacement of positions, such as primary diagnostic personnel and imaging diagnostics. But this might also open new career paths for professionals with expertise in medical AI and information management. Promoting AI technology development in developing nations can help advance fields, such as the creation of diagnostic software.

It is imperative that we approach ChatGPT with caution and subject it to critical evaluation, weighing its benefits against its drawbacks. This paper presents a dialectical examination of the current state of ChatGPT application in medical education, conducting an in-depth analysis of its advantages and the dilemmas it presents. In addition, targeted strategies are proposed to address these challenges effectively. The aim is to standardize and rationalize ChatGPT’s maximum potential in the future, paving the way for innovative approaches in medical education and contributing to the advancement of medicine.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021-HLKY-06) and the Clinical Nursing Research Fund Project of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University (2021-HLKY-06), People’s Republic of China.

Abbreviations

Authors' Contributions: TX performed the conceptualization of topics, analysis and interpretation of the image, and writing of the paper. QW and HW supervised and controlled writing quality. FL and LY contributed to project administration. YL and ZD monitored and regulated the project.

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

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• How to Write an Essay with ChatGPT | Tips & Examples

How to Write an Essay with ChatGPT | Tips & Examples

Published on 26 June 2023 by Koen Driessen .

Passing off AI-generated text as your own work is widely considered plagiarism. However, when used correctly, generative AI tools like ChatGPT can legitimately help guide your writing process.

These tools are especially helpful in the preparation and revision stages of your essay writing.

You can use ChatGPT to:

• Write a research question
• Develop an outline
• Find relevant source information
• Summarise or paraphrase text
• Get feedback

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Table of contents

Writing a research question, developing an outline, finding source recommendations, summarising/paraphrasing text, getting feedback, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions.

You can use ChatGPT to brainstorm potential research questions or to narrow down your thesis statement . Begin by inputting a description of the research topic or assigned question. Then include a prompt like “Write 3 possible research questions on this topic”.

You can make the prompt as specific as you like. For example, you can include the writing level (e.g., high school essay, college essay), perspective (e.g., first person) and the type of essay you intend to write (e.g., argumentative , descriptive , expository , or narrative ).

You can also mention any facts or viewpoints you’ve gathered that should be incorporated into the output.

If the output doesn’t suit your topic, you can click “Regenerate response” to have the tool generate a new response. You can do this as many times as you like, and you can try making your prompt more specific if you struggle to get the results you want.

Example: Using ChatGPT to write a research question

• Generate three possible research questions for an argumentative high school essay on the following topic: “The long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
• To what extent has the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated existing social inequalities and what measures can be taken to address these disparities in the long term?
• How has the Covid-19 pandemic transformed education systems, and what are the potential long-term implications for students’ learning outcomes and educational equity?
• What lessons can be learned from the Covid-19 pandemic to enhance global preparedness and response to future public health crises, and how can these lessons be effectively implemented in the long term?
• Based on the second question, develop three further research questions with a specific focus on distance learning.
• What are the long-term effects of widespread adoption of distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic on students’ academic performance, motivation, and overall educational outcomes?
• How has the shift to distance learning impacted the social and emotional well-being of students, and what strategies can be implemented to address any negative consequences in the long term?
• What are the key factors that contribute to the success of distance learning programs, and how can educational institutions and policymakers ensure equitable access to quality education in the long term, especially for marginalized and underserved student populations?

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Once you’ve decided on a research question, you can use ChatGPT to develop an essay outline . This can help keep you on track by giving you a clear idea of what topics you want to discuss and in what order.

Do this by prompting ChatGPT to create an outline for a specific research question, mentioning any topics or points you want to discuss. You can also mention the writing level and the intended length of your essay so that the tool generates an appropriate outline.

You can then refine this by further prompting ChatGPT or editing the outline manually until it meets your requirements.

Examples: Using ChatGPT to generate an essay outline

• Develop an outline for an argumentative high school essay with the following research question: “What are the long-term effects of widespread adoption of distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic on students’ academic performance and overall educational outcomes?”The essay will be about 4 pages long.
• Background information on the Covid-19 pandemic and the shift to distance learning
• Thesis statement: The widespread adoption of distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic has had both positive and negative long-term effects on students’ academic performance and overall educational outcomes.
• Increased flexibility and personalized learning opportunities
• Access to a wider range of resources and educational materials
• Development of self-directed learning skills
• Critiques and limitations of previous studies
• Lack of face-to-face interaction and reduced social engagement
• Increased potential for distractions and lack of structure
• Technological barriers and unequal access to resources
• Examination of studies and data on academic achievement during distance learning
• Analysis of long-term effects on educational attainment and future opportunities
• Discussion of potential implications for college admissions and career readiness
• Strategies for promoting student engagement and motivation in distance learning
• Importance of teacher-student communication and support
• Addressing technological disparities and ensuring equitable access to resources
• Recap of the main points discussed
• Emphasize the need for further research and long-term planning to optimize distance learning experiences
• Restate the thesis and provide a final thought on the potential long-term effects of distance learning on students’ academic performance and overall educational outcomes

Once you know the scope of your essay, you can find relevant primary and secondary sources to support your argument.

However, we don’t recommend prompting ChatGPT to generate a list of sources as it occasionally makes mistakes (like listing nonexistent sources). Instead, it’s a good idea to use ChatGPT to get suggestions for the types of sources relevant to your essay and track them down using a credible research database or your institution’s library.

When you have found relevant sources, use a specialised tool like the Scribbr Citation Generator to cite them in your essay.

Example: Using ChatGPT to find sources

• What types of sources can I use to write an essay on the following research question?”What are the long-term effects of widespread adoption of distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic on students’ academic performance and overall educational outcomes?”
• Academic Journals and Research Articles: Look for scholarly articles and research studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals. These sources often provide in-depth analysis, empirical evidence, and statistical data on the long-term effects of distance learning.
• Educational and Government Reports: Reports published by educational institutions, government agencies, or educational organizations can offer valuable insights into the impact of distance learning on academic performance and educational outcomes. These reports may include surveys, case studies, and data analysis specific to the Covid-19 pandemic and distance learning.
• Official Websites and Publications: Explore the official websites of educational institutions, education ministries, or educational technology companies. They often publish articles, white papers, or research findings related to distance learning and its effects on students’ academic performance.
• Expert Interviews or Opinion Pieces: Seek out interviews or opinion pieces from experts in the field of education, distance learning, or pedagogy. These sources can provide valuable perspectives and insights on the long-term effects of distance learning on students’ educational outcomes.
• Online Databases and Digital Libraries: Utilize online databases and digital libraries such as JSTOR, Google Scholar, or academic databases provided by your educational institution. These platforms offer a wide range of scholarly articles, research papers, and publications that can support your arguments.
• Surveys and Studies Conducted by Educational Institutions: Some schools or universities may have conducted their own surveys or studies to evaluate the impact of distance learning on students. Check if your educational institution has published any research findings or survey results that are relevant to your topic.

During your writing process, you can use ChatGPT as a summarising tool to condense text to its essential ideas or as a paraphraser to rephrase text in clear, accessible language. Using ChatGPT in these ways can help you to understand complex material, express your own ideas more clearly, and avoid repetition.

Simply input the relevant text and prompt the tool to summarise or paraphrase it. Alternatively, you can use Scribbr’s free text summariser and Scribbr’s free paraphrasing tool , which are specifically designed for these purposes.

Example: Using ChatGPT to summarise/paraphrase

• Paraphrase the following text using clear language:”Engaging in an extensive examination of the intricate interplay between remote instructional methods and academic achievement necessitates consideration of diverse factors, including the pedagogical efficacy of virtual platforms, the socioemotional ramifications of reduced face-to-face interactions, the equitable accessibility of technological resources, and the potential long-lasting implications for students’ educational trajectories and future opportunities.”
• To thoroughly explore the connection between remote teaching methods and academic success, it is crucial to take into account various factors. These factors include evaluating how well virtual platforms support effective teaching, understanding the impact of limited in-person interactions on students’ emotional well-being, ensuring fair access to technology resources, and recognizing the potential long-term effects on students’ educational paths and future prospects.

Once you’ve written your essay, you can prompt ChatGPT to provide feedback and recommend improvements.

You can indicate how the tool should provide feedback (e.g., “Act like a university professor examining papers”) and include the specific points you want to receive feedback on (e.g., consistency of tone, clarity of argument, appropriateness of evidence).

While this is not an adequate substitute for an experienced academic supervisor, it can help you with quick preliminary feedback.

You can also use ChatGPT to check grammar mistakes. However, ChatGPT sometimes misses errors and on rare occasions may even introduce new grammatical mistakes. We suggest using a tool like Scribbr’s free grammar checker , which is designed specifically for this purpose. Or, for more in-depth feedback, try Scribbr’s proofreading and editing service .

Example: Using ChatGPT for feedback

• Feedback the above text with regard to consistency of tone, clarity of argument, appropriateness of evidence, and coherence of structure.
• Clarity of Argument: The argument could be further clarified by explicitly connecting the discussed factors to their impact on academic performance. For example, explicitly stating how the proficiency of virtual platforms and equitable access to technology affect academic performance would strengthen the clarity of the argument.
• Appropriateness of Evidence: The evidence provided is generally appropriate and relevant. To enhance the strength of the evidence, consider incorporating specific examples, research studies, or statistics that directly support the discussed factors and their impact on academic performance. This would provide stronger evidence for the claims made.
• Coherence of Structure: The structure of the text is coherent, with a clear introduction, body paragraphs addressing different factors, and a conclusion. To improve coherence, consider adding transitional phrases or sentences at the beginning or end of paragraphs to facilitate the smooth flow of ideas between paragraphs. This would enhance the overall structure and make it easier for the reader to follow the argument.

Overall, the text demonstrates a consistent tone, a clear argument, appropriate evidence, and a coherent structure. Clarifying the argument by explicitly connecting the factors to their impact, incorporating stronger evidence, and adding transitional phrases for better coherence would further enhance the text’s effectiveness. Note Passing off AI-generated text as your own work is generally considered plagiarism (or at least academic dishonesty ) and may result in an automatic fail and other negative consequences . AI detectors may be used to detect this offence.

If you want more tips on using AI tools , understanding plagiarism , and citing sources , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations, examples, and formats.

• Citing ChatGPT
• Best grammar checker
• Best paraphrasing tool
• ChatGPT in your studies
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Best plagiarism checker

Citing sources

• Citation styles
• In-text citation
• Citation examples
• Annotated bibliography

Yes, you can use ChatGPT to summarise text . This can help you understand complex information more easily, summarise the central argument of your own paper, or clarify your research question.

You can also use Scribbr’s free text summariser , which is designed specifically for this purpose.

Yes, you can use ChatGPT to paraphrase text to help you express your ideas more clearly, explore different ways of phrasing your arguments, and avoid repetition.

However, it’s not specifically designed for this purpose. We recommend using a specialised tool like Scribbr’s free paraphrasing tool , which will provide a smoother user experience.

Using AI writing tools (like ChatGPT ) to write your essay is usually considered plagiarism and may result in penalisation, unless it is allowed by your university. Text generated by AI tools is based on existing texts and therefore cannot provide unique insights. Furthermore, these outputs sometimes contain factual inaccuracies or grammar mistakes.

However, AI writing tools can be used effectively as a source of feedback and inspiration for your writing (e.g., to generate research questions ). Other AI tools, like grammar checkers, can help identify and eliminate grammar and punctuation mistakes to enhance your writing.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Driessen, K. (2023, June 26). How to Write an Essay with ChatGPT | Tips & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 23 September 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/using-ai-tools/chatgpt-essays/

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Is ChatGPT like a nine-year-old child in theory of mind? Evidence from Chinese writing

• Published: 19 September 2024

Cite this article

• Siyi Cao 1 , 2   na1 ,
• Yizhong Xu 3   na1 ,
• Tongquan Zhou 1 &
• Siruo Zhou 4  

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ChatGPT has been demonstrated to possess significant capabilities in generating intricate human-like text, and recent studies have established that its performance in theory of mind (ToM) tasks is strikingly comparable to a nine-year-old child’s. However, it remains unknown whether ChatGPT outperforms children of this age group in Chinese writing, a task credibly related to ToM. To justify the claim, this study compared ChatGPT with nine-year-old children in making Chinese compositions (i.e., science-themed and nature-themed narratives), aiming to unveil the relative advantages and disadvantages by human writers and ChatGPT in Chinese writing. Based on the evaluative framework comprising of four indices (i.e., fluency, accuracy, complexity, and cohesion) to test writing quality, this study added an often-overlooked index “emotion” to extend the framework. Afterward, we collected 120 writing samples produced by ChatGPT and children and used the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) for data analysis and comparison. The results revealed that this age group of children surpassed ChatGPT in fluency and cohesion while ChatGPT transcended the children in accuracy. With respect to complexity, the children exhibited better skills in science-themed writing, but ChatGPT better in nature-themed writing. Most importantly, this study unlocked the pioneering discovery that children display more potent emotional expressions than ChatGPT in Chinese writing, providing an instance of evidence that ChatGPT is really even poorer than a nine-year-old child in ToM to some extent.

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The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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This work was supported by the Humanities and Social Science Research Fund of the Chinese Ministry of Education (No. 23YJA40061) and SEU Innovation Capability Enhancement Plan for Doctoral Students (No. CXJH_SEU 24166).

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Siyi Cao and Yizhong Xu contributed equally to this work.

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School of Foreign Languages, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China

Siyi Cao & Tongquan Zhou

Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong

College of Foreign Languages, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210023, China

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Correspondence to Tongquan Zhou .

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Cao, S., Xu, Y., Zhou, T. et al. Is ChatGPT like a nine-year-old child in theory of mind? Evidence from Chinese writing. Educ Inf Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13046-7

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Published : 19 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13046-7

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Using AI tools

Using ChatGPT to Write a College Essay | Tips & Examples

Published on June 26, 2023 by Koen Driessen . Revised on December 8, 2023.

A good college essay helps to distinguish your application from those of other candidates. It conveys your experiences, values, and character traits and indicates why you would make a good addition to the university you’re applying to.

Your college essay should be your own work. However, AI tools like ChatGPT may be helpful during the preparation and revision stages of your writing.

You can also use the essay checker , so you don’t have to revise your writing yourself.

You can use these tools to:

• Brainstorm essay ideas
• Develop an outline
• Generate feedback

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Table of contents

Brainstorming ideas, developing an outline, generating feedback, limitations of using chatgpt, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions.

Your college essay topic should reveal something distinctive about your personality and have a unique angle.

Brainstorming a range of potential ideas is a good place to start. This can help to stimulate creative thinking and prompt self-reflection. It can also help you draw connections between seemingly unrelated experiences or ideas.

You can use ChatGPT to generate questions to help you brainstorm.

Example: Using ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas

• Generate 10 questions to help me brainstorm topics for my college admission essay.
• How has a particular life experience shaped your perspective on a specific issue or topic?
• What challenges or obstacles have you faced, and how have they influenced your personal growth?
• How has your involvement in extracurricular activities impacted your character development and contributed to your identity?
• In what ways have you demonstrated leadership skills and made a positive impact on your community?
• Describe a significant academic achievement or project that showcases your intellectual curiosity and passion.
• How have your cultural background and family values influenced your aspirations and goals for the future?
• Reflect on a time when you had to step outside of your comfort zone to achieve a meaningful outcome. What did you learn from this experience?
• How do you envision using your education to make a difference in the world or contribute to a specific field or industry?
• What do you believe sets you apart from other applicants, and how would your unique perspective enrich the college community?
• Discuss a book, artwork, or scientific discovery that has profoundly impacted your thinking and helped shape your intellectual interests.

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College admission essays don’t follow one predefined structure, so you can approach them creatively and incorporate storytelling techniques.

Two common approaches to structuring your essay are the narrative structure (a chronological narrative that shows your character development over time) and the vignette or montage structure (multiple scenes connected by a common topic or theme).

Regardless of the structure you choose, it’s important to establish a coherent narrative and ensure that your essay flows smoothly.

You can use ChatGPT as a source of inspiration and to generate potential ideas on how to structure your college essay . Do this by prompting the tool to create an outline using your chosen topic. You can make the prompt as specific as you like, mentioning any facts or viewpoints that should be incorporated into the output.

Examples: Using ChatGPT to generate an essay outline

• Provide a very short outline for a college admission essay. The essay will be about my experience working at an animal shelter. The essay will be 500 words long.
• Hook: Share a brief and engaging anecdote about your experience at the animal shelter.
• Thesis statement: Working at an animal shelter has been a transformative experience, teaching me valuable lessons about compassion, resilience, and community impact.
• Describe your first impressions and emotions upon starting work at the shelter.
• Discuss the challenges you encountered, such as the condition of the animals or the emotional toll of their situations.
• Highlight the relationships you formed with the animals and their impact on you.
• Discuss specific instances where you witnessed the transformative power of love and care on the animals’ well-being.
• Explore the collaborative efforts within the shelter community.
• Discuss how working with others led to positive outcomes and inspired you to make a difference.
• Reflect on how working at the shelter has shaped your character and values.
• Discuss the skills and lessons learned that are applicable beyond the shelter environment.
• Connect your experiences to your future goals and aspirations.
• Summarize the main points discussed in the essay.
• Reinforce the transformative nature of your experience and your commitment to making a positive impact in the future.

You can use ChatGPT to help revise your essay before submitting it to ensure that it’s of a high quality. However, ChatGPT cannot provide the same kind of informed feedback as a human, and it’s not able to adequately judge qualities such as vulnerability and authenticity. For this reason, it’s important to also ask for feedback from two to three people who have experience with college essays and who know you well.

Nevertheless, you can use ChatGPT to generate feedback on certain aspects, such as consistency of tone, clarity of structure, and grammar and punctuation. You can also use  Scribbr’s free paraphrasing tool to help vary the tone of your writing and Scribbr’s free grammar checker to ensure your text is free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

Alternatively, you can seek the advice of a human essay coach or editor. We recommend using Scribbr’s essay editing service .

Example: Using ChatGPT to get feedback

• Provide constructive feedback on how to improve the above essay with regard to appropriateness of tone, clarity of structure, and grammar and punctuation.
• The tone of the essay is generally appropriate, conveying a sense of personal growth and passion. However, consider injecting more enthusiasm and emotion into certain parts of the essay to make it more engaging and captivating.
• The overall structure of the essay is clear and follows a logical progression. However, it would benefit from a stronger introduction that hooks the reader and clearly outlines the main points to be discussed.
• Consider using clear topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph to provide a preview of the main idea or argument that will be presented.
• Pay attention to subject-verb agreement and verb tenses throughout the essay to ensure consistency.
• Proofread the essay to eliminate any repetitive phrases or sentences.
• Check for the correct use of commas and other punctuation marks, ensuring they are used appropriately to enhance clarity and flow.

Additionally, here are a few constructive suggestions for improvement:

• Expand on the ways in which working at the animal shelter influenced your future aspirations and academic/professional pursuits.
• Be mindful of using diverse vocabulary and sentence structures to enhance the overall quality of the essay.

While ChatGPT can help you brainstorm, outline, and revise your essay, having it write your essay for you can negatively impact your application in several ways.

Unoriginal content

ChatGPT responses are based on a wide range of sources and sometimes resemble existing texts. Furthermore, they are not always unique, since other users may receive the same responses to similar prompts.

As the point of a college essay is to showcase your unique experiences and perspective and make you stand out from other candidates, having ChatGPT write your essay is not a good idea.

Formulaic style

ChatGPT outputs don’t reflect your personality, are highly formulaic, and contain many clichés (e.g., outputs often use hackneyed phrases like “burning desire,” “insatiable curiosity,” and “thirst for knowledge”).

Furthermore, ChatGPT outputs often “tell” rather than “show” (i.e., they state a fact instead of illustrating it using examples and vivid imagery).

Lack of personal insight

Human-written text tends to be more unpredictable and contain more creative language choices than AI-generated writing.

While the connections you make in your writing should not be nonsensical, drawing unique and unexpected connections between different experiences can help show character development and display your creativity and critical thinking skills.

ChatGPT can’t do this. Furthermore, it can’t express authentic emotion or vulnerability about specific memories that are, after all, your memories, not ChatGPT’s.

Risk of plagiarism

Passing off AI-generated text as your own work is usually considered plagiarism (or at least academic dishonesty ). AI detectors may be used to detect this offense.

It’s highly unlikely that a university will accept your application if you are caught submitting an AI-generated college essay.

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If you want more tips on using AI tools , understanding plagiarism , and citing sources , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations, examples, and formats.

• Citing ChatGPT
• Best grammar checker
• Best paraphrasing tool
• ChatGPT in your studies
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Best plagiarism checker

Citing sources

• Citation styles
• In-text citation
• Citation examples
• Annotated bibliography

No, having ChatGPT write your college essay can negatively impact your application in numerous ways. ChatGPT outputs are unoriginal and lack personal insight.

Furthermore, Passing off AI-generated text as your own work is considered academically dishonest . AI detectors may be used to detect this offense, and it’s highly unlikely that any university will accept you if you are caught submitting an AI-generated admission essay.

However, you can use ChatGPT to help write your college essay during the preparation and revision stages (e.g., for brainstorming ideas and generating feedback).

Yes, you use ChatGPT to help write your college essay by having it generate feedback on certain aspects of your work (consistency of tone, clarity of structure, etc.).

However, ChatGPT is not able to adequately judge qualities like vulnerability and authenticity. For this reason, it’s important to also ask for feedback from people who have experience with college essays and who know you well. Alternatively, you can get advice using Scribbr’s essay editing service .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Driessen, K. (2023, December 08). Using ChatGPT to Write a College Essay | Tips & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved September 23, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/ai-tools/chatgpt-college-essay/

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