ChatGPT is frequently regarded as a tool that would eventually replace human labour in jobs such as writing papers for students or professionals. However, ChatGPT can also be used to help human activity, and research is a good example. Whether you're writing a research paper for school or conducting market research for your job, starting the research process and locating the appropriate sources can be difficult and time-consuming. ChatGPT and other AI chatbots can assist by reducing the amount of time spent finding materials, allowing you to get to the real reading and research component of your task more quickly.
Choosing the Best Chatbot
Before we begin, it is critical to understand the limits of ChatGPT. ChatGPT will not be able to provide you with access to information or resources after 2021 since it is not connected to the internet, nor will it be able to provide you with a direct link to the source of the information. It's really useful to be able to ask a chatbot for links related to a specific topic. If you want to do that, I propose using an internet-connected chatbot like Bing Chat, Claude, ChatGPT Plus, or Perplexity.
This post will use ChatGPT as an example of how prompts might be used, but the ideas apply to any chatbot you pick.
1. Inventive+ Imagination
When you're assigned research papers, you'll be given a general topic area to work with, but you'll have to choose the specific topic for your paper or research. ChatGPT can assist with brainstorming by providing ideas or even modifying your own. For this sample research paper, I will focus on "Monumental technological inventions that caused pivotal changes in history." If I didn't have a specific topic in mind, I'd tell ChatGPT the overall theme of the project in as much detail as possible and ask for some suggestions.
My prompt: I have to write a research paper on "Monumental technological inventions that caused pivotal changes in history." It needs to be ten pages long and source five different primary sources. Can you help me think of a specific topic?
As seen by the screenshot (below), ChatGPT produced 10 viable topics, including "The Printing Press and the Spread of Knowledge", "The Internet and the Digital Age", "The Telegraph and the Communication Revolution", and more.
2. Make an outline
Once you've decided on a topic, you can ask ChatGPT to develop an outline with as much detail as possible for your assignment. In this example, I used the first topic provided by ChatGPT in the previous phase.
My prompt: Could you provide me with an outline for a ten-page research paper on "The Printing Press and the Spread of Knowledge" that must include five original sources?
As shown in the image above, ChatGPT developed a 13-point outline that carefully detailed the areas I should cover in my paper. You can next use this outline to arrange your article and the points to discover references, as described below in ChatGPT.
3. Explain your topic to ChatGPT and request sources.
Now that you've established a topic and plan for your project, you can ask ChatGPT about it and request sources.
My prompt: Could you provide me with materials for a ten-page paper on "The Printing Press and the Spread of Knowledge"?
ChatGPT generates a list of five primary and five secondary sources for your work. Remember that while ChatGPT cannot provide you with internet links, you must find the appropriate materials on your own, whether by Googling or visiting your school library. When I asked Bing Chat the same question, it provided sources with clickable links that you can use to access the material you need quicker. For that reason, I would use Bing Chat for this step.
4. Describe a specific concept and request sources
You can utilise a chatbot to identify sources for a certain area of your work rather than explaining the entire issue. For example, I asked ChatGPT for sources for a certain bullet in the above-mentioned paper outline. My question is, can you provide me with sources on the social and intellectual milieu around the time the printing press was invented? ChatGPT generated five primary and five supplementary resources for the topic, as in the previous example. Using this feature for smaller chunks of your essay is a good alternative because it gives you more options on sources and provides tailored insight that you can use to carefully craft your piece.
5. Request specific incidence instances.
I frequently use this prompt in my workflow since I sometimes remember something particular happened but can't remember what it was or when it happened. This tool can also be used to discover a specific case to back up your point. In both circumstances, you may ask ChatGPT to assist you in identifying a specific event or time period and incorporating that information into your post. In our essay example, if I wanted to include a rebuttal and describe an occasion when deploying technology had a negative influence but couldn't think of one, I could ask ChatGPT for assistance.
6. Make citations
Creating a page with the works you mentioned is time-consuming and inconvenient. You may now ask ChatGPT to produce citations for you by simply entering the link or title of the work and instructing it to write a citation in the format of your article.
I asked ChatGPT to generate a ZDNET citation for this article. As shown in the image above, the tool requested that I enter the access date and style for the citation before swiftly generating a complete citation for the work.
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