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I suggested that students use ChatGPT as a writing assistant for one of their assignments where I wanted them to be focused more on the content of their work rather than on their writing style. Content refers to the main information and meaning that needs to be conveyed (the methods and results of a research paper, the relevance, and interpretation of a finding, etc.). Style represents the more superficial presentation of the content (is the information conveyed using simple and accurate language or is it too technical? are everyday examples used or is the presentation very abstract? etc.). Of course, great style is necessary for conveying content accurately so content and style are definitely entangled. However, in certain cases (e.g., when you have a lot of information to go through), it is important to focus the resources on understanding the content first before developing a beautiful style.

-Luca Iemi, Term Assistant Professor in Neuroscience & Behavior, Barnard College

How to use ChatGPT *smartly* as a personal writing assistant: 

1) Read and understand the article. 

To effectively comprehend the article, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the technical terms and grasp how various concepts relate to each other. It is totally possibly that you might have to conduct additional research beyond the article. It is essential to pay attention to every paragraph in a peer-reviewed journal as they typically contain important information. Thus, it is important to comprehend the author's objective in each paragraph and summarize it in a brief sentence using your own words. This will generate a bulleted point list with all the important information. You can put 3 bullet points per slide. In case you come across an unfamiliar term, define it in your notes as "what is X? X is bla bla bla". You can add those explanations to the slide as well.

If something in the article is unclear and you cannot absolutely find a solution on your own, reach out to your classmates and to the professor for help. DO NOT summarize something you don't understand.

2) Dictate transcript.

Open a blank document on MS Word. Press the MS Word's "Dictate" button (top-right corner) and start explaining each bullet point in the slides with your own words. This will generate a large block of words with no punctuation, no paragraphs, no structure. You should add headings and give it some sort of structure by separating different sections.

Articulating your thoughts verbally enables you to assess your comprehension of a concept, and it compels you to convey the idea using straightforward language since it is spoken.

3) Use ChatGPT. 

Spoken speech is full of redundancies, repetitions, and false starts. To clean it up, you need to remove these redundancies. and that is where ChatGPT comes in. 
Take each block of your transcript and ask ChatGPT to remove redundant words, add punctuation (and summarize it if you think you have repeated the same concept over and over). You can enter this "Please remove redundant words and expressions from the following passage and make it coherent and cohesive:" and then copy and paste the block of your transcript. Do this for each block of your transcript and you will get a first draft of your transcript.

Most people use ChatGPT to create a product: write this, answer that, etc... That's not smart because ChatGPT doesn't always tell the truth and you can't ask it to tell you the sources from where information is taken. Instead, use ChatGPT to speed up the process of writing.