3 ms·

I think it's okay to use ChatGPT to write and fix your prose, but not to do your thinking or analysis for you. That's how I use it at work.

RugnirViking 3y ago
> to write and fix your prose fix prose, absolubtely. To write? Well a lot of the more egrerious errors ive seen when trying to get it to write academic writing comes from it not having a full context of what the problem is/whats been done/ what you are trying to do. Ive been turning over the idea in my head that for one to fully give it all the required context one might as well just use that context as the piece of writing in the first place. There is no advantage into stretching the relevant information to 6 paragraphs instead of 2. Not to say it should never be used but trying to use it while being thorough and actually reading its output has usually led me to extending context more and more and eventually just writing the section myself.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  I don't think you should just blindly accept the results. I just write what I want to say stream of consciousness, drop it into chatgpt and then review the result to see where it improved and where it didn't. A prompt such as "Why are all the dolphins dying?" would be unacceptable. A prompt such as rewrite "explain that the dolphins are dying because 30 degree rise in ocean temperaturs made their environments unlivable" that reformats the language into a academic style I feel is totally acceptable and efficient if you read what it spits out and agree and edit from there.
jprete 3y ago
I am very sympathetic to people who are using it to write better in language X when their native language is Y. I think most other people should not use it for writing, because the hard part is thinking about (A) what you _really_ want to say (B) what your audience cares about (C) mistaken assumptions by you or your audience, which need correction in the text. And I think people using ChatGPT to write will give it a vague idea of (A) and usually nothing about (B) and (C).

RugnirViking 3y ago

> to write and fix your prose fix prose, absolubtely. To write? Well a lot of the more egrerious errors ive seen when trying to get it to write academic writing comes from it not having a full context of what the problem is/whats been done/ what you are trying to do. Ive been turning over the idea in my head that for one to fully give it all the required context one might as well just use that context as the piece of writing in the first place. There is no advantage into stretching the relevant information to 6 paragraphs instead of 2. Not to say it should never be used but trying to use it while being thorough and actually reading its output has usually led me to extending context more and more and eventually just writing the section myself.

daft_pink 3y ago
I don't think you should just blindly accept the results. I just write what I want to say stream of consciousness, drop it into chatgpt and then review the result to see where it improved and where it didn't. A prompt such as "Why are all the dolphins dying?" would be unacceptable. A prompt such as rewrite "explain that the dolphins are dying because 30 degree rise in ocean temperaturs made their environments unlivable" that reformats the language into a academic style I feel is totally acceptable and efficient if you read what it spits out and agree and edit from there.

jprete 3y ago

I am very sympathetic to people who are using it to write better in language X when their native language is Y. I think most other people should not use it for writing, because the hard part is thinking about (A) what you _really_ want to say (B) what your audience cares about (C) mistaken assumptions by you or your audience, which need correction in the text. And I think people using ChatGPT to write will give it a vague idea of (A) and usually nothing about (B) and (C).