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Scientific Research and Communication — AI Tools for Research

Developing Communication Competencies for STEM Students

AI Tools for Academic Research and Writing

New tools are constantly emerging from LLMs (Large Language Models) that use generative AI to produce new analysis, text, or to answer questions.  Below I have listed some AI tools that are especially developed to aid with scholarly research.  Please note that listing these tools does not imply that I encourage or endorse them. Please be aware of the risks of uploading information to AI tools with regards to either:

  • sensitive or confidential information (DO NOT upload sensitive, confidential, or proprietary information to these tools)
  • copyright infringement (many publishers/journals/authors prohibit the uploading of articles or their writing to LLMs)
  • data ownership policies (read the fine print)
  • AI hallucinations. An AI hallucination is incorrect or misleading information generated by an AI model. AI tools can hallucinate references, resources, and links. They can make up references that look legitimate, but are false or do not exist.  Do not blindly trust references given by chat prompt LLM AI tools like Chat GPT.

That being said, we now live in the era of ubiquitous AI. Many of these tools developed specifically for researchers can be very useful.  Best practices with regards to using AI include acknowledgement of the use of an AI tool in your work, citation, and checking for errors,

Make sure you A.C.E. your use of these tools by:

  • Acknowledging that you used a LLM AI tool in your research or assignment
  • Citing the tool in your bibliography or list of Works Cited
  • Evaluating for errors: check for errors in references; is the information given by the AI tool true? Does it add value?

This list was created by and is maintained by STEM librarian Renée Walsh. Renée created the acronym A.C.E. as a pedagogical mnemonic device. It can be reused and remixed by attribution under a CC-BY Open Commons license.

Remember to Acknowledge, Cite, and Evaluate! A.C.E.

AI Tools for Summarizing/Analyzing Research Paper Key Points or Editing/Proofreading/Checking References

AI Tools for Asking Questions and More!

AI Tool Aggregator

Search Scholarly Papers and Patents

AI Tool for Scientific Illustrations and Images

AI Tool for Mind Mapping

AI Tools for Network Analysis/identifying Similar Papers/Researchers

AI Tool for Generating Outlines, Structuring Writing

AI Tools for Systematic Reviews

AI Tools for Computer Programming Code Review

AI Tools for Computational Data Analysis or Data Visualizations

Other AI Chat Tools:

Books on AI and University Academics

Want to learn more about AI tools and academic research?