The world of AI is growing exponentially every single day and more students are turning to artificial intelligence to aid their writing. Many plugins claim to "help" academic writing, but in reality, they encourage superficial engagement with sources, weaken critical thinking skills, and increase the risk of plagiarism. Here are five commonly used AI plugins—and why you should think twice before using them.

1. ScholarAI

Whether writing an essay, report, or dissertation, you will need to source information from various books and papers to signal a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Scholar AI plugin contains an extensive collection of academic literature. It covers subjects such as Science, Health and Medicine, Journalism, Business, and Law. You just need to tell AI your subject and/or topic and you will get a list of relevant literature, together with links to specific books or articles.

While this may sound useful, it promotes passive research habits. Instead of critically engaging with your topic and selecting the most relevant sources yourself, you rely on an AI-generated list that may be incomplete, outdated, or even inaccurate. True academic research requires careful selection, evaluation, and interpretation of sources—something no AI can do for you.

2. AskYourPDF

When writing academically, you will need to extract information from many sources. This is a lengthy process that requires browsing through many journal articles. AskYourPDF allows you to upload a PDF, such as a journal article, and summarise it in just a few steps. The plugin will list key information from the article and propose a list of questions you can ask to understand the text better.

The problem? Summaries strip away the nuance and complexity of academic arguments. Relying on AI to digest information for you prevents proper engagement with texts, making it more likely that you misunderstand or misrepresent key points.

  • AI lacks critical thinking and up-to-date knowledge—but our academics don’t. They'll provide personalised literature review support to help you critically evaluate, interpret, and integrate sources into your writing.

3. LinkReader

Apart from scanning through PDF documents, AI plugins can help you skim through other sources relevant to your academic writing, such as lecture slides, Word files, and online links. One such plugin is LinkReader, which not only summarises the information from various sources but also helps you interpret, analyse, and explain them.

Academic writing, however, isn’t just about summarising information—it’s about questioning, comparing, and articulating ideas. If AI is doing the thinking for you, your ability to develop and express original arguments will suffer.

4. ShowMe

During your academic studies, there will be countless times you’ll need to prepare a figure or a graph. This could present a summary of a particular model and its components, the thematic map of your qualitative findings, or a graph summarising some statistical results. ShowMe is a plugin that can help you produce compelling graphs. You’ll just need to provide information on the contents of the graph, and the plugin will generate one for you.

Remember that visuals outputs in academia should reflect a deep comprehension of data and research findings. If you rely on AI to create visuals, you risk producing misleading or incorrect information that could weaken your entire argument.

5. BibGuru

The last way AI plugins can aid your academic writing is by generating your reference list. BibGuru generates citations in various formats, including but not limited to APA, Harvard, Vancouver, and Chicago. The plugin might be easy to use—you’ll just need to search a title you’ll get a matching reference in a second—citation software is notorious for errors such as misformatted references, missing details, and incorrect sources. Learning to reference manually ensures accuracy and a better understanding of citation practices.

A key message

AI plugins might appear to simplify academic writing, but they come at a cost. They encourage passive engagement with sources, reduce critical thinking, and increase the risk of academic misconduct. Universities are cracking down on AI-assisted writing, and over-reliance on these tools can lead to serious consequences, including accusations of plagiarism.

If you want to improve your writing, the best approach is to develop strong research skills, engage deeply with your sources, and seek expert guidance when needed.

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