The Pros and Cons of Using Chatbots
This hands-on guide for PhD students, postdocs and researchers, outlines strategies for prompt generation, editing, and ethical AI use in academia. The book is in the form of a user-friendly manual, using practical examples and real-world scenarios to demonstrate how chatbots can support—and sometimes hinder—academic work. It is aimed at seasoned users of chatbots, as well as those who are AI-hesitant but open to integrating chatbots into their academic work. By viewing AI as a collaborator rather than a replacement, this guide helps you boost—not erase—your intellectual contribution, voice, and academic rigor.
You will learn how to:
- optimize your prompting techniques and the way you interact with chatbots
- improve your written English across all formats (papers, presentations, emails) with greater clarity, conciseness, and engagement
- distinguish AI texts from human texts, and make your own AI-generated text sound less like chatbotese
- fact-check and verify chatbot output
- detect and mitigate bias, hallucinations, and plagiarism
- combine critical thinking with prompt-engineering
For EAP teachers, this book is a great source for i) preparing instructive and entertaining lessons. ii) learning how to generate personalized exercises, and iii) getting tips for teaching students.
Please visit http://www.springer.com/series/13913 for a full list of titles in the series, which includes AI-Assisted Writing and Presenting in English; English for Writing Research Papers; and English for Presentations at International Conferences.
Adrian Wallwork is the author of more than 50 ELT and EAP textbooks aimed at students and researchers. He has trained several thousand PhD students and academics to exploit AI as a support for writing research papers, preparing presentations, and communicating with editors, referees and fellow researchers. His courses are also available on Udemy.