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AI-Powered Scholar: A Beginner’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence for Academic Writing & Research
This book is a practical and comprehensive guide on using AI tools to streamline and optimise the academic writing and research process.
Through a series of step-by-step instructions and practical tips, this book provides readers with the knowledge and tools they need to leverage the power of AI to produce high-quality academic publications. The text covers the historical context of AI development, techniques for communicating with AI systems, and strategies for transforming AI into helpful research assistants. Readers will discover the art of prompt engineering and learn practical applications for using AI to ideate research projects, conduct literature searches, and accelerate academic writing. Emphasis is placed on the responsible use of AI, positioning it as an extension of human capabilities rather than a replacement. Through real-world examples, complex AI concepts are demystified, and key challenges and limitations are addressed head-on.
Whether you're a university student or a tenured professor, this book is your indispensable companion to beginning your path towards becoming an AI-powered scholar.
Through a series of step-by-step instructions and practical tips, this book provides readers with the knowledge and tools they need to leverage the power of AI to produce high-quality academic publications. The text covers the historical context of AI development, techniques for communicating with AI systems, and strategies for transforming AI into helpful research assistants. Readers will discover the art of prompt engineering and learn practical applications for using AI to ideate research projects, conduct literature searches, and accelerate academic writing. Emphasis is placed on the responsible use of AI, positioning it as an extension of human capabilities rather than a replacement. Through real-world examples, complex AI concepts are demystified, and key challenges and limitations are addressed head-on.
Whether you're a university student or a tenured professor, this book is your indispensable companion to beginning your path towards becoming an AI-powered scholar.
Kindle Edition
Published December 27, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 12, 2025
Oh god, I am going to have to start using AI. I’ve been avoiding it like the plague for far too long. I can see all the reasons why it is a good idea – but the problem is that AI basically does all of the things I think I’m rather good at – and so, it is a bit like being told to use something that helps you with your times tables when you have already learnt them.
The thing I’m likely to remember from this book in particular is the idea of being nice to AI as you ask it questions. You know, say things like thank you and if you wouldn’t mind. The author is quite amusing on this. Not only does she mention that if AI ever becomes our overlord, perhaps it will treat us better if we have been polite to it in the past – but mostly for something I believe is absolutely true – that you should treat AI with dignity for the same reason you should treat animals with dignity – because if you don’t you are likely to treat your fellow humans appallingly too. It costs nothing – but actually, doing the opposite might ultimately cost a lot.
She gives some wonderful tips on how to go about getting AI to do work for you. Mostly this involves constructing exactly how you want it to respond. In many ways this involves telling it exactly what audience you want your response for by giving AI a persona to follow. You need to construct prompts that say something like, I want you to summarise these three research papers as if you are an academic researcher preparing a literature review for a paper to be published in an academic journal. At one point the persona she creates is that of a librarian who is trying to ensure she keeps her audience interested by salting the results of the output with jokes.
The dangers of AI – particularly those associated with hallucinations are discussed at length. The onus is always on you to check the output and not assume that because it came from a computer it must be right. This is only part of the problem, of course, since AI is trained on what already exists out there is the cesspit of the internet, and so ensuring that the output isn’t crammed full of racist or climate denying nonsense is down to you, not the machine.
I liked the idea that you can use AI to help you be creative. I hadn’t thought of doing this before. You know, you can talk to it about your ideas and ask it to find connections between things that you might not have really thought about before – like asking it how someone who is an anthropologist might respond to what you are saying – or a feminist – or a MAGA Trump crazy. This is something I think would be really useful – particularly in our world where we are much too keen to want to remain in our own echo chambers.And not just people, but you can ask it to make connections to random things and your ideas too - in much the same way Edward de Bono suggests. "How does all this relate to banana cultivation techniques?"
This is a useful book – and although it is mostly directed at academia, I think a much broader audience would get a lot out of it too. It is a quick and easy read and one that gives you lots of ideas.
That said, I still haven’t used AI – certainly not to write this. But I am going to have to get around to it one of these days.
The thing I’m likely to remember from this book in particular is the idea of being nice to AI as you ask it questions. You know, say things like thank you and if you wouldn’t mind. The author is quite amusing on this. Not only does she mention that if AI ever becomes our overlord, perhaps it will treat us better if we have been polite to it in the past – but mostly for something I believe is absolutely true – that you should treat AI with dignity for the same reason you should treat animals with dignity – because if you don’t you are likely to treat your fellow humans appallingly too. It costs nothing – but actually, doing the opposite might ultimately cost a lot.
She gives some wonderful tips on how to go about getting AI to do work for you. Mostly this involves constructing exactly how you want it to respond. In many ways this involves telling it exactly what audience you want your response for by giving AI a persona to follow. You need to construct prompts that say something like, I want you to summarise these three research papers as if you are an academic researcher preparing a literature review for a paper to be published in an academic journal. At one point the persona she creates is that of a librarian who is trying to ensure she keeps her audience interested by salting the results of the output with jokes.
The dangers of AI – particularly those associated with hallucinations are discussed at length. The onus is always on you to check the output and not assume that because it came from a computer it must be right. This is only part of the problem, of course, since AI is trained on what already exists out there is the cesspit of the internet, and so ensuring that the output isn’t crammed full of racist or climate denying nonsense is down to you, not the machine.
I liked the idea that you can use AI to help you be creative. I hadn’t thought of doing this before. You know, you can talk to it about your ideas and ask it to find connections between things that you might not have really thought about before – like asking it how someone who is an anthropologist might respond to what you are saying – or a feminist – or a MAGA Trump crazy. This is something I think would be really useful – particularly in our world where we are much too keen to want to remain in our own echo chambers.And not just people, but you can ask it to make connections to random things and your ideas too - in much the same way Edward de Bono suggests. "How does all this relate to banana cultivation techniques?"
This is a useful book – and although it is mostly directed at academia, I think a much broader audience would get a lot out of it too. It is a quick and easy read and one that gives you lots of ideas.
That said, I still haven’t used AI – certainly not to write this. But I am going to have to get around to it one of these days.
November 14, 2025
Lays out proper use of AI.
More geared towards those are just starting to explore AI tooling.
Still, I lifted a couple of interesting bits and bobs that I used immediately.
More geared towards those are just starting to explore AI tooling.
Still, I lifted a couple of interesting bits and bobs that I used immediately.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews