Generative AI can be used to summarize individual articles as well as elicit research themes from a collection of articles.  This can be helpful if you are conducting research outside of your field or major, are learning the scientific language for a discipline, or are an English language learner navigating the English language-dominant research literature.  

While this use can complement article abstracts in assessing the fit of an individual article for a research project, it can also be susceptible to hallucinations, bias, and limited or incorrect interpretations, and is not a substitute for reading the full article as part of class assignments.  

Examples:

1. Library databases like ProQuest One Business and JSTOR will provide enhanced summaries of individual articles.  See an example of “Key Takeaways” in the Proquest FAQ here.

Generative AI can explain technical terms and concepts, and connect you to additional research in the field.  This function is especially helpful in library research databases with integrated research assistants.

Examples

1. The ProQuest Research Assistant will provide brief summaries of important concepts discussed in an article, and the JSTOR interactive research assistant will extract and define “key points” from an individual article.