Students • Research • AI
From finding the right papers to drafting polished sections of your thesis, AI tools have become indispensable for students and researchers in 2025. This guide covers the most useful tools — Elicit, Consensus, Zotero (AI-enhanced), ChatGPT, and Perplexity/Scholar-like assistants — plus practical workflows, prompts, and ethical tips.
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Why students and researchers use AI
Academic work involves a lot of repetitive, time-consuming tasks: scanning dozens of papers, extracting key findings, formatting citations, and synthesizing results. AI accelerates these steps so you can spend more time thinking critically and less time on grunt work.
Top AI Tools (what they do & when to use them)
Elicit
Best for: Literature discovery and evidence synthesis.
Why use it: Elicit uses AI to search academic databases, extract findings, and summarize results across many papers. When starting a literature review, prompt Elicit with your core research question and let it return key papers, methods, and outcome summaries.
“Use Elicit to answer: ‘What are recent randomized trials on digital learning interventions for college students? Provide sample sizes and main outcomes.'”
Consensus (or Perplexity / Scholar-like tools)
Best for: Quick evidence-backed answers and summarizing what multiple sources say.
Why use it: Consensus aggregates academic knowledge and returns concise, sourced answers — great for quick fact-checks or generating background sections.
Zotero (with AI integrations)
Best for: Reference management, automatic citation formatting, and organizing research libraries.
Why use it: Zotero saves and tags PDFs, generates citations in multiple styles, and — with AI plugins — can auto-summarize saved items or suggest related literature.
ChatGPT (GPT-4 / GPT-4o)
Best for: Drafting, brainstorming, and refining academic prose.
Why use it: ChatGPT helps rephrase complex paragraphs, generate structured outlines, create practice questions, and draft email templates to supervisors. Always cross-check factual claims it produces.
Other helpful tools
- Grammarly / Writefull: Academic-level grammar, clarity, and publication-ready language suggestions.
- Descript: For transcribing interviews and converting audio data into text for qualitative analysis.
- Jupyter / Copilot: AI coding assistants for data analysis and reproducible research workflows.
Practical workflows — save hours each week
1) Rapid literature review (starter to draft)
- Start with Elicit: input your research question to gather candidate papers and quick summaries.
- Open promising papers, save them to Zotero, and tag by theme.
- Use Consensus/Perplexity for quick cross-checks and to capture differing viewpoints.
- Generate a 300–500 word draft summary with ChatGPT, then edit for nuance and citations.
2) Interview transcription → coded themes
- Transcribe with Descript or Whisper (OpenAI) for accuracy.
- Use ChatGPT to extract themes and create initial codebooks from transcripts.
- Refine codes manually and run inter-rater reliability checks if needed.
3) Data analysis & reproducibility
Use Jupyter notebooks alongside AI coding assistants (Copilot, Code Interpreter) to produce reproducible analysis. Keep raw data separate, document steps, and use version control (Git) for collaborative work.
Sample prompts students can use right away
For ChatGPT (drafting)
“Write a 300-word literature review summary on ‘active learning in undergraduate STEM education’ with 5 cited studies and a short critique of methods.”
Tip: ask ChatGPT to provide citations and then verify each citation in your library.
For Elicit / Consensus (search)
“Find randomized controlled trials since 2018 on spaced repetition for vocabulary retention. Provide effect sizes and sample sizes.”
Ethics, accuracy & academic integrity
AI is a powerful assistant — not an author. Always:
- Verify facts and citations produced by AI against primary sources.
- Follow your university’s policy on AI use and attribution.
- Use AI for drafting and summarizing, but disclose its assistance when required.
FAQs
Can AI write my entire paper?
AI can draft sections, suggest structure, and help with editing—but relying entirely on AI risks errors and ethical issues. Use it to assist, not to replace your critical thinking and original analysis.
How accurate are AI literature summaries?
Accuracy varies. Tools like Elicit and Consensus aim to cite sources, but always open and verify original papers for methods and context.
Are these tools free?
Many tools offer free tiers (Zotero, basic ChatGPT access, community Elicit functions). Premium tiers unlock advanced features like batch processing, higher-quality models, or team collaboration.