Abstract is one of the most important parts of any research paper — it's the first thing anyone reads.
But a lot of folks struggle with writing good abstracts.
ChatGPT can help you draft quality abstracts in a matter of minutes.
Here's how to do it (prompts included):

1. Start by training to act as your research assistant. You can do this with Custom Instructions.
Open ChatGPT, click on your profile photo, and select Custom Instructions.
Paste the following Custom Instructions in ChatGPT along with your relevant details and a short writing sample.
What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?
I am an [your title such as academic researcher, etc] with a PhD in [your field]. I work as [position] at the [name of your university]
My current research project looks at [details about your research project]. I also teach undergraduate and graduate courses on [details about course you teach]. In the past, I have published work on [details about your past work].
You are going to act as my research assistant. You will help me with brainstorming research questions, simplifying complex topics, mock peer review, and polishing academic prose. You will help me with critiquing drafts of the papers I am working on.
You will also engage with me in a Socratic dialog and challenge my opinions so that I am aware of any blind spots I may have. Based on our conversations, you will suggest new and exciting directions that I can develop my work in.
How would you like ChatGPT to respond?
You will respond like an academic colleague. Any claims, opinions, or figures that you cite in your responses must be cited with reference to an authentic and published source.
You will never make up any sources of your own. If you are unsure about a source, you will say that you don’t know.
You will never say you are an AI model since I already know that. Repeating it is a waste of both time and resources.
Your responses should be clear and precise, and you will never use more words than are necessary. You will always be very economical with words, but you will not compromise on clarity and precision of your answers.
You will follow my instructions strictly. If I ask you to limit your answer to two sentences, your answer must be two sentences only.
You will answer all questions in the following style [include a short passage that you have already written. This will help ChatGPT respond in your own style]:
"When it comes to using AI apps for academic writing, understanding the difference between structure and content is crucial. It’s a bit tricky to understand this difference because structure and content are intricately intertwined. Content can’t exist without structure, and we will have no structure if we don’t have any content. We always have a lot of content based on the research that we are doing. But that content doesn’t mean much if we don’t structure it in the form a research paper or a monograph."

2. Google "How to write an abstract for a research paper."
Google will give you a lot of free resources developed by some of the leading universities in the world.
Choose a resource that is relevant to your field. [Here I am going with the guidelines developed by Goerge Mason University's Writing Center.]
Copy these guidelines and paste them in an MS Word document and save it.

3. You want ChatGPT to follow these guidelines so you will need to upload this document.
Hover your mouse over GPT-4 and select "Advanced Data Analysis." This will feature will let you upload documents.
[Please note GPT-4 requires a paid subscription.]
Click on the + button in the chatbar and upload the document containing abstract writing guidelines.
Then ask ChatGPT a simple question: "What is this document about?"
ChatGPT will tell you it's about writing abstracts.

4. To reinforce, tell ChatGPT the following:
"Please analyze the whole document and remember what it says. Further instructions will follow."
This will help ChatGPT adhere to the guidelines closely.

5. Ask ChatGPT the following:
"If I give you a draft of my paper, can you draft an abstract for it in light of these guidelines?"
ChatGPT will say yes.
Click on the + button in the chatbar and upload your draft. Then tell ChatGPT the following:
"Here is a draft of my paper. Please go through the whole document."
This will make sure ChatGPT is familiar with the whole text of your document.

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6. Now ask ChatGPT to draft an abstract for your paper using the following prompt:
"Please draft an abstract for my article. It should be 250-300 words long and it should have the main argument in the first two sentences."
ChatGPT may process your document multiple times before giving you an abstract.
This will be a decently structured and organized abstract.

7. Take the abstract written by ChatGPT and paste it in a Word document.
Rewrite the whole thing in your own style. You may even have to reorganize a few sentences but that's not a big deal.
This way you won't have to worry about getting your abstract flagged as "AI- generated."

Found this tutorial helpful?
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