Skip to Main Content

Student Guide to AI

A guide to using ChatGPT and other Generative AI in education.

Generating Topics

ChatGPT can be a useful tool when it comes to deciding what your topic should be for a research paper.

It’s not good for doing the actual searching because it makes up sources.

But you can use it to help you:

  • Narrow down your topic ideas.

  • Come up with keywords for searching in library databases.

  • Construct a search strategy for those databases.

  • Recommend possible library databases to use for your topic.

Always check with your professor before using generative AI (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grammarly, etc.) to complete any part of your assignments.

Here's How

Consider this activity when starting your research:

  1. Sign up for a free account on ChatGPT (if you haven’t already). Or go to https://chat.openai.com and log in to your account.

  2. To prompt ChatGPT effectively, use this example:

Act as an expert academic librarian. I’m writing a research paper for [course] and I need help coming up with a topic. I’m interested in topics related to [subject]. Please give me a list of 10 topic ideas related to that.

Here’s an example:
Act as an expert academic librarian. I’m writing a research paper for Sociology and I need help coming up with a topic. I’m interested in topics related to climate change. Please give me a list of 10 topic ideas related to that.

  1. Now go to ChatGPT and paste in your prompt.

  2. Look over the list it gives you and find one topic that you’re interested in. If there isn’t one, ask ChatGPT to give you more topics. Keep going until you find a topic you like.

  3. Now tell ChatGPT which of those topics you want to use. 

Example: I like the topic, Climate Change Denial and its Societal Influence.

Then it will give you some sub-topics or research questions. If it doesn’t, ask for some.

  1. Choose your specific research question from the list. If you don’t like any of them, ask for more. Keep going until you find one you want to use.

  2. Now you can tell ChatGPT which research question you’re going to use. Ask it for some keywords to use when searching library databases.

    Example: My research question is going to be this: Investigate the role of social media and online communities in propagating climate change denial and misinformation. Please list some keywords I can use when searching library databases.

  3. You can use the keywords and phrases it gives you in library databases or Google Scholar.

  4. For more specific research, you can ask ChatGPT to give you some Boolean search strings to use in library databases.

Example: Please construct a few Boolean search strings I can use when researching this topic in library databases.

NOTE: ChatGPT will save all of this information for you, so the next time you visit, you’ll see this conversation in your chat history on the left side.

Now that you have some search strings, keywords, and phrases, you can ask ChatGTP for advice on which library databases will work best for your topic.

Example:
Now I'd like you to recommend 2 or 3 library databases at Golden West College that would be good to search for this topic.

  1. Go to our list of library databases and check to see if our library has the databases it recommends.

Now you can use your search strings in those databases. If you need help with search strategies, see the library resource: Search Strategies from *The Research Process: A Guide for GWC Students.

Contact a Librarian

Reference Desk:Golden West College Library

Contact the Reference Desk when you want to speak with a librarian*. A librarian can help you use the resources listed throughout the Library website and walk you through the research process.

*Check our hours of operation information on this page.

Need more than just a quick question? Set up an appointment in advance!

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License unless noted otherwise.