Standard LLM chat tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity can be used to complete the majority of the research steps outlined in this guide. It may take a little more work to use these tools for some tasks though.
Learning how to “prompt” AI will help. There are many tutorials on the Internet showing good prompting techniques. Below are a few that may be helpful for academic research:
- “Student Guide to ChatGPT” from the University of Arizona Libraries - this useful resource contains a short guide to effective prompting. It contains example prompts and tips for using ChatGPT
- “Getting Started with Prompts for Text-Based Generative AI Tools” from Harvard University
- “Prompt Literacy in Academics” by the University of Michigan
The following are some of the most popular AI LLM tools. They are not set up for specific research tasks like many others listed on the guide, but can be used in a variety of ways.
- DuckDuckGo - provides access to four AI models (ChatGPT, Claude, Llama and Mixtral).