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AI & ChatGPT

Activities

Compare and Contrast

Pose similar research questions to a traditional search engine (e.g. google), a generative search engine (e.g. perplexity.ai), an AI chatbot (e.g. ChatGPT), and a library database (e.g. JSTOR). You may need to break the question up into search terms in some tools. Compare and contrast the results.

  • How useful and accurate are the results? What information ought to have been included that was left out? Do you know how to adjust the search parameters to retrieve that information successfully? Is the tool capable of retrieving the information that was left out? 
  • Are any citations provided real?
  • Is it is easy to identify particular types of sources? (e.g. scholarly journal articles, articles published in a particular date range, etc.)
  • Read the supporting documentation for the tool. How does it generate results? 

Keyword Brainstorming with AI

Consider a research topic, and work through a keyword brainstorm process on that topic. Then consult additional sources related to the topic: 

  • A wikipedia article
  • An introductory book
  • ChatGPT
  • Perplexity.ai
  • A scholarly journal article

Consider - how did each source change your understanding of the topic? Which source was the most useful for identifying additional search terms? What made it useful? (e.g. ease of use, accuracy, etc.)