AI In Academic Research

Who's it for

Audience: Staff, PGRs, and students doing dissertations/projects.

Purpose: To show how GenAI can support parts of the research process without replacing scholarship, databases, or ethics.

Scope First

GenAI can help you:

Clarify / narrow a research question
Explain unfamiliar methods or theory
Draft and improve academic English
Sketch code/snippets for analysis
Plan presentations and write-ups

GenAI should not:

Invent or verify sources for you
Handle confidential / participant / placement data in public tools
Replace discipline databases, literature searches or systematic methods

Always follow your university research/ethics/data policies first.

Planning & Scoping with AI

Use AI to:

Rephrase a broad idea into 2–3 researchable questions.

“You are helping a postgraduate student in UK HE. Here is a broad topic: [topic]. Suggest 3 research questions: one broad, one focused, one applied.”

Map subtopics / theoretical lenses.

“List key subtopics / theoretical approaches I should be aware of.”

Get a reading strategy.

“How should I approach the literature on this?”
(Then you go to the library/database to actually read it.)

Don’t accept AI’s “here are some papers…” without checking them - these can be hallucinated.

Reading & Explanation

When you have a paper/abstract/long text:

Paste a paragraph/abstract.
Ask:

“Explain this for a Level 6 UK student / a non-specialist.”

Ask follow-ups about methods, sampling, and limitations.
Then read the real paper.

This is good for widening participation and for students new to research writing.

Data Analysis & Coding (light Touch)

Quant / coding help:

Describe what you’re trying to do (“I have a CSV with … I want to run …”)
Ask AI to produce R/Python/SPSS starter code
Run and check the code yourself
Document “AI-generated starter code was used and then modified by the researcher.”

Qual help:

Ask AI to suggest possible codes/categories from your description of the data, not from the actual transcripts (unless you can safely anonymise them)
Ask how to refine themes, or how to write up thematic findings

Important: don’t upload raw, sensitive, or participant-identifiable data to public AI. See Data, privacy, copyright & accessibility (UK HE).

Writing & Revising

AI is very good at:

Outlining a paper/report/thesis chapter
Improving clarity and academic tone
Generating alternative titles/abstracts
Converting a long note into a paragraph

Ask things like:

“Improve the academic clarity of this paragraph for a journal article in [field]. Keep all technical details and references. UK spelling.”

Then you check:

Field-specific style
Citations exist and are correct
Arguments are still yours

Declaring AI Use in Research Writing

Add a short statement such as:

“A generative AI tool was used to help clarify the structure and wording of sections X and Y. All content, findings and references were selected and verified by the author.”

If you used AI to generate code/a codebook:

“A generative AI tool was used to suggest initial code/R/Python structures. These were reviewed, modified and executed by the researcher.”

Supervising With AI (Staff)

Supervisors can use AI to:

Turn bullet-point notes into clearer feedback
Generate viva-style questions on the student’s topic
Produce example paragraph improvements

But, don’t upload the student’s identifiable research data to public tools.

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