Generative AI Student Research Guide

What GenAI Can Do: 

• Brainstorm ideas – Generate potential angles, examples, or perspectives.
• Create outlines – Suggest structure, section headings, or key points for assignments.
• Explain concepts – Rephrase or expand on topics you are struggling to understand.
• Support writing – Improve clarity, style, grammar, or tone of your drafts.
• Help with citations – Suggest citation formats (though accuracy must always be verified).
• Enhance searches – Suggest synonyms and keywords for literature or database searching.
• Develop research questions – Help you refine or narrow your focus.
• Identify gaps – Point out areas that could be expanded or connected in your research.

• Synthesize information – Summarize or compare existing findings (with caution).

What GenAI Cannot Do

• Guarantee accurate sources – It cannot provide verifiable evidence without fact-checking.
• Understand human meaning – It does not grasp emotions, context, or nuance in the way people do.
• Make ethical or moral judgments – AI cannot decide what is fair, responsible, or appropriate.
• Replace critical thinking – AI suggestions still require human interpretation, reflection, and evaluation.

Responsible Academic Use

• Always fact-check AI-generated text, data, and citations.
• Evaluate AI like any other source – check relevance, credibility, and accuracy.
• Take responsibility – Ultimately, you are accountable for the accuracy, originality, and ethics of your work.

Is using an AI or chat bot on an assignment plagiarism? 

• By the strictest definition of plagiarism, it is plagiarism if you don’t cite it. The chatbot is the author of the text, not you, therefore you can’t claim that it is your own original work. This is similar to if you had given a human writer your topic and asked them to write a paper for you.
• The chat bot is summarizing information for you. Its answers are only as accurate as the sources it selects and the quality of its summary. Much like human created content, a chatbot is only as credible as your ability to check its sources. Any lack of transparency should be regarded with skepticism.
• Generally, using AI to brainstorm or explore concepts isn’t cheating if you use those ideas to inspire your original work.
• The goal of education is learning. You should use AI as a tool to enhance your understanding and skills, not to bypass or shortcut the learning process.