Learn what ChatGPT (and similar tools) are good for and learn how to effectively work with them (prompting).
Example from Salt Lake Community College
This sample was created in February 2023 by Tiffany Rousculp, SLCC Writing Across the College director.
“Generative artificial intelligence (AI) software is a rapidly emerging tool that students may be interested in using. If doing so, SLCC students are expected to adhere to the same standards as the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities statement on plagiarism. Presenting generative AI software content as your own is a violation of academic integrity. If you use generative AI in your work, you must indicate that you have done so.”
Remember, you'll always need to verify the information, because ChatGPT will sometimes make things ups (known as "hallucination.")
What is it good for?
What is it not so good for?
Note: You may want to try one of these sites that summarize web search results with generative AI. (But don't use ChatGPT, since it's not connected to web search).
Asking for any information that would have dire consequences if it was incorrect (such as health, financial, legal advice, and so on). This is because of its tendency to sometimes make up answers, but still sound very confident.
What is prompting?
Simply, it's what you type into the chat box.
ChatGPT sometimes makes things up. That's because it's designed to write in a way that sounds like human writing. It's not designed to know facts.
Tips for writing effective prompts
Examples
Or...
I didn't like any of those topics. Please give me 10 more.
More tips
If you want to learn more about prompting, try this free course: Learn Prompting