Skip to Main Content

BIOL 2420 Martin

Using AI

In higher education, AI can be a powerful tool for deepening learning and fostering creativity. It can assist with research, provide alternative explanations for complex concepts, streamline personal workflows, generate drafts or visualizations, and support multilingual communication. However, like any tool, it must be used ethically, transparently, and with academic integrity. This means more than simply following rules. It involves critically examining when AI use supports genuine learning outcomes, being able to articulate how it contributed to your work, and ensuring that it supplements rather than replaces your own intellectual effort.

Ethical AI use in higher education includes:

  • Clearly acknowledging and citing when AI tools contribute to your work.
  • Following your institution’s guidelines for acceptable AI use.
  • Using AI to support—not replace—critical thinking and original analysis.
  • Protecting personal and sensitive information when using AI tools.
  • Considering the broader impact of AI on equity, privacy, and academic integrity.

Ultimately, becoming AI literate is about more than mastering the mechanics of a tool. It’s about developing the critical awareness to decide when, how, and why AI should be part of your work, and being able to explain and justify those choices.

What Generative AI Can and Cannot Do

Generative AI (GenAI) can be a powerful tool for supporting your learning and research, but it has clear limits. Understanding both its capabilities and its boundaries will help you use it responsibly and effectively.

What GenAI Can Do: 

  • Brainstorm ideas – Generate potential angles, examples, or perspectives.
  • Create outlines – Suggest structure, section headings, or key points for assignments.
  • Explain concepts – Rephrase or expand on topics you are struggling to understand.
  • Support writing – Improve clarity, style, grammar, or tone of your drafts.
  • Help with citations – Suggest citation formats (though accuracy must always be verified).
  • Enhance searches – Suggest synonyms and keywords for literature or database searching.
  • Develop research questions – Help you refine or narrow your focus.
  • Identify gaps – Point out areas that could be expanded or connected in your research.

  • Synthesize information – Summarize or compare existing findings (with caution).

What GenAI Cannot Do

  • Complete assignments for you – Submitting AI-generated work without acknowledgment is academic misconduct.
  • Guarantee accurate sources – It cannot provide verifiable evidence without fact-checking.
  • Understand human meaning – It does not grasp emotions, context, or nuance in the way people do.
  • Make ethical or moral judgments – AI cannot decide what is fair, responsible, or appropriate.
  • Replace critical thinking – AI suggestions still require human interpretation, reflection, and evaluation.

Responsible Academic Use

  • Always fact-check AI-generated text, data, and citations.
  • Evaluate AI like any other source – check relevance, credibility, and accuracy.
  • Know the policies – Different universities, publishers, and funders have their own rules.
  • Be transparent – Acknowledge your AI use with collaborators, instructors, or in publications.
  • Take responsibility – Ultimately, you are accountable for the accuracy, originality, and ethics of your work.

Before beginning any academic project, check with your course instructor, department, or institutional policies on AI use to ensure your work aligns with the required ethical and academic standards.

How to Cite Generative AI

Generative AI refers to technology that is capable of creating content like text, images, audio, etc. These generative works are tricky to cite because they cannot always be directly reproduced by another person using the same tool. 

As a best practice, you should acknowledge your use of the generative AI tool in the methods section of your paper (or other relevant section if needed).

 

APA

Reference list

Publisher. (Year). Name of tool (Version name) [Additional description]. URL

example:

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

In-text citation

(Publisher, Year)
example:

(OpenAI, 2023)

 

For more information visit the APA Style Blog "How to Cite ChatGPT". 

Subjects: Science