Days of racking your brains hard for writing long academic essays for schools, colleges, and competitions, are finally over with the launch of this uber cool AI tool that everyone is talking about – ChatGPT.
For the uninitiated, it is the most popular go-to writing tool in contemporary times to get you thinking and working fast. That is not to say that it encourages you to plagiarize content or end up duplicating the AI-generated text though.
There is always a disclaimer to this: Your content will end up reading ‘fake’ on AI-generated text tracking platforms if you were to directly lift text from the tool and paste it elsewhere. The writing tool is only meant to assist you in academic pursuits, like thinking and writing.
In the following sections, we have attempted to break our article into small capsule points to enable you to leverage this AI-powered tool for your creative and scholarly pursuits and use it judiciously to improve your writing efficiency in the process.
1) For Eye-Catching Headlines
If you can get this cracking, you win half the way! The point is to get the reader’s attention in a world where focus duration and engagement length are reducing with every passing year. You are required to be ingenious and relevant to get your audience’s attention. Get to summarizing the core idea of your article in the headline in a succinct way. Pique their curiosity and challenge their perspectives by engaging them with thought-provoking questions, descriptive words that evoke emotions, and by creating a sense of urgency or exclusivity in the title itself. Using an AI-powered tool for this purpose is like winning half the battle. Render ChatGPT with clear and concise prompts to help you with generating unique titles for your essays.
2) For Compelling Introductions
For a captivating start, you must be in sync with the topic in hand and the mood of the audience. For example, if your article or essay is about leveraging technology you may begin with something that says, “Imagine a world where everyone possesses the power to create and shape their own destiny through the mastery of one essential skill…”
It is important that you introduce the audience gradually to the relevance of the topic in your opening paragraph. Clearly state your essay’s main argument in the introduction and present logical explanations with an abundance of examples. Provide an outline of the key points that you bring to the fore, giving the readers a clear roadmap of what to expect from the article.
While it is important to bear the target audience in mind while scripting the essay, it helps to strike a balance between a scholarly tone and a friendly one. However, it helps to avoid overly casual expressions and colloquial language. Stick to the facts and statistics to stay coherent. ChatGPT is a wonderful writing assistance that can help you create such engaging lead-ins.
3) For Ideation
You must first begin by providing the AI tool with a clear and precise description of the theme or subject you are writing about. Since it generates human-like responses, be careful to provide unique prompts. Do not use the generic ones as the model may generate texts that could result in duplicity, especially if others working on a similar topic also provide the same prompt/s that you did. You must also clearly communicate the objective of your essay.
ChatGPT will produce ideas in tune with the purpose, for example, mention if you want an analytical essay, a creative one, a scholarly one, et al. Conveying your goal will assist ChatGPT in generating ideas that align with your purpose. Attempt to ask open-ended questions, and request for examples and case studies to enrich your content and strengthen your arguments. ChatGPT can offer new angles, connections, or insights that you may not have considered.
4) To Generate Outlines
If you are clear in the head about the theme you will be engaging with in your essay, it should be easy for you to communicate a brief overview of the issue for ChatGPT to generate an applicable outline or structure for the essay. For example, you may specify the number of sub-sections or the key points you wish to include. You can also ask the writing tool to provide sub-topics or supporting arguments for your essay. Engaging in a dialogue with ChatGPT can ensure a logical flow between different sections and points.
5) For Fact Checking
Though there are steps to conduct fact-checking using ChatGPT, it’s crucial to independently verify the accuracy and credibility of the sources you use because the AI-powered tool doesn’t have real-time access to the internet. It can assist you with gathering information and providing suggestions though. You will do well to cross-reference the data with other reputable sources. These include trusted news outlets, academic papers and books, and authoritative websites. Once you have identified reputable sources, you can ask the writing tool to help you with citation formatting (author, title, publication date, etc.) in the appropriate citation style.
6) To Strengthen Your Word Proficiency
While it is okay to borrow ideas, concepts, suggestions, and information from this powerful writing tool, it is not okay to reproduce the whole matter just as it is. You can think of weaving your word magic around the generated content. Play with phrases and use words that enhance your writing efficiency. This helps you own the content without running the risk of replicating the whole content from the AI-powered tool.
Conclusion
In the end, it is important to critically review and evaluate your work before submission. Make necessary revisions and adjustments to ensure that the matter aligns with the essay’s objectives and structure. Adapt the outline according to your specific requirements and writing style.
Using a writing assistant is meant just for that — assisting you to generate ideas and thoughts for comprehensive essays and to improve your overall writing skill; it is never meant to replace human talent and intellect fully. ChatGPT can provide valuable guidance and ideas but it will be a wrong practice to wholly depend on the AI tool to do the entire work for you. The facts it provides may not always be foolproof so it is best to cross-check the data on other reliable platforms.
