ChatGPT Prompts to Enhance Research Proposal Writing

Before deep diving into the specific prompts that can be used to enhance research proposal writing,  let me start this post by repeatingly remind each other as acdemicians and professionals, to use ChatGPT responsibly and ethically. Whilst ChatGPT can be very useful in many aspects of research proposal writing, the onus still falls on the researchers to evaluate and verify the accuracy of the information generated by ChatGPT. ChatGPT does not absolve us of the accountability of being a thinking researcher and academician.

Q1. Should ChatGPT be included as a co-author of your paper?

I do not believe that ChatGPT can be a co-author under any circumstances because authorship is not merely about putting your name in the paper. Authorship also means taking personal accountability of the contents of the paper.  In this regard, ChatGPT is not a personal entity that can take personal accountability. 

Even in the guidelines by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on who qualifies to be an author, an author is someone who fulfills the following:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

ChatGPT cannot fulfill the fourth criteria. 

Hypothetically, if ChatGPT can be a co-author for every academic paper produced with the aid of this AI model, then ChatGPT would become the most global author, and soon to be the most cited author, in every academic discipline and in every country of the planet as long as there is internet connection.

Q2. Is ChatGPT a friend or a foe in the academic circle?

This is the question I saw circulating in many websites. But to me, this is a wrong question to ask. ChatGPT, just like any other technology, is morally neutral. A knife can be a friend or a foe depending on who is using it. Or as Joseph C. Pitt famously said, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people". (Pitt, J.C. (2014). “Guns Don’t Kill, People Kill”; Values in and/or Around Technologies. In: Kroes, P., Verbeek, PP. (eds) The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht).  This is known as the Value Neutrality Thesis.

The question, therefore, is not whether is ChatGPT a friend or a foe. Rather the question is, Do YOU want ChatGPT to be a friend or a foe?

Now, the specific suggested prompts that can be used to enhance research proposal writing:

If you already have your proposal ready

To evaluate the quality of the proposal

Pretend you are a reviewer. Evaluate the quality of this part of the proposal/write-up, highlighting both the good and bad points.

Pretend you are a reviewer. Evaluate the quality of this part of the write-up on [SECTION]. Be strict and be as critical as possible.

To evaluate the grammatical aspect of the proposal

Pretend you are a language editor. Evaluate the grammatical aspects of this write-up.

To edit the proposal

Pretend you are a language editor. Edit this write-up and send back to me. Do not remove the in-text citations in your response:

[TEXT]

 

But if you do not yet have a full proposal,

Brainstorming for Research Ideas 

I want to conduct a study in the field of [EXPERTISE/INTEREST]. Generate for me fundamental research ideas to work on. Highlight the novelty of each idea with the sentence "Novelty:..." 

I want to conduct a multi-disciplinary study in the field of [EXPERTISE/INTEREST]. Generate for me fundamental research ideas to work on. Highlight the novelty of each idea with the sentence "Novelty:..." 

Brainstorming for Research Titles 

I want to conduct a study on [RESEARCH TOPIC/IDEA]. Generate some titles for my research. 

Outlining Research Proposal 

I am interested to conduct a study on [RESEARCH TITLE]. Outline my research proposal. 

Brainstorming Research Questions 

I am interested to conduct a study on [RESEARCH TITLE]. Suggest some research questions for me. 

Generating Hypothesis 

Generate the corresponding hypotheses based on the following research questions: 

[RESEARCH QUESTION(S)]

Generating research objectives

Generate the corresponding research objectives based on the following research questions:

[RESEARCH QUESTION(S)]

Generating (or comparing) problem statement

Based on this literature review, generate for me the problem statement of this research: 

[LITERATURE REVIEW] 

Generating suggested conceptual framework| 

Based on these research questions, generate for me a conceptual framework for my research: 

Literature Review

Screening for relevance of search results 

I want to clean the dataset to only select the topic that is only relevant to “[RESEARCH TITLE]”. Read the titles and abstracts given and evaluate it weather it is about “[RESEARCH TITLE]” or not.   Based on the following data, list the feedback to include AUTHOR, TITLE, YEAR, Relevant (Yes/No) and Reason (please provide a simple reason if the info given related to the “[RESEARCH TITLE]” or not).  List your response in TABLE FORMAT.  [AUTHOR, TITLE, YEAR, Relevant (Yes/No), Reason]

Tabulate past studies 

Summarize these abstracts in columns. 

Write paragraphs based on past studies 

Paraphrase these abstracts in paragraphs. Do not remove in-text citations in your response. 

Generating suggestions for probable statistical methods based on research design 

I am conducting a research using [THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, e.g. UTAUT-2 model] with [RESEARCH DESIGNS, e.g., 6 independent variables and one dependent variable]. Suggest the possible statistical analysis that I can use. 

Identifying for relevant research instruments 

Based on these research questions and title, list the appropriate instruments that can be used to measure these research questions: 

Generating new research instruments based on existing theoretical models/frameworks 

I want to conduct a study on [RESEARCH TITLE] using the [THEORETICAL MODELS, e.g. UTAUT-2 model/TAM model]. Generate a survey instrument for me. 

Generating feedback/comments on relevance of research to governmental policies 

Based on this title and the research objectives, generate for me the paragraph on the relevance of this research to governmental policy:

[TITLE]

[RESEARCH OBJECTIVES]

Identifying the United Nations Sustainability Developmental Goals (SDG) addressed in the research 

Based on this title and the research objectives, state which UN SDG addressed in this research?

[TITLE]

[RESEARCH OBJECTIVES] 

Generating feedback on how the research title can meet the Quintuple Helix of Innovation

Describe how the research title [RESEARCH TITLE] can meet the quintuple helix of innovation

 

 

Lessons Learned From ICEM 2010 (Part G): 22 Emergency Medicine-Related Research Ideas and Tips Gained From ICEM 2010

22 Emergency Medicine-Related Research Ideas and Tips Drawn From ICEM 2010

1) Conduct a study to look into the influence of economic recession and inflation on Malaysian patients’ preferences of medical treatment (public healthcare including emergency department facilities versus private healthcare facilities).

2) As a paradigm shift, carry out more preventive medicine in emergency medicine to truncate diseases early in the course of illness.

3) Conduct studies to look into the effectiveness of empowering patients and family or engaging them in a form of partnership in patient management. Common example: mild head injury advice on discharge – does it reduce the rate of admission without compromising on care?

4) Conduct study to look into not just bystander CPR rate of your community, but also bystander First aid rate. Pick specific life saving first aid interventions – e.g. bleeding control prior to arrival to hospital

5) Especially in times of economic recession, sophisticated technology is not always the answer to good emergency care. Conduct studies that are simple, cost-effective and yet have profound clinical benefit for your community.

6) Conduct study to look into public access AEDs in your community. How many of the public places and buildings have AEDs? Are the staffs working in that particular place with AEDs know how to use them?

7) Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate

8) Innovate, innovate, innovate…... often research methodologies can be designed by giving existence researches a “tweak” to suit them into your setting and patient population.

9) Be creative, as no idea is just too crazy for innovation.

10) In order to generate a research idea, one should always an inquisitive mind. One should always ask “Why?” “Why not?” For example, “why should treatment X better than treatment Y?”

11) There are many areas or domains of research one can embark on, among which: Cellular level, organs and system, disease process, patients, family, organization, hospital staffs, treatment modalities – drugs, surgery, etc, diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, screening, communication, attitude.

12) Translate research done in one area into another area related to emergency medicine

13) Do validation studies of newly formulated clinical prediction rules, scoring systems, etc

14) If a drug or a mode of treatment works in one group, try postulating and ask whether the mode of treatment will work well in another group or not; e.g. adults vs pediatrics, prehospital vs hospital settings, etc.

15) Do studies on incidences of clinical errors, misdiagnosis, etc.

16) Ask advice and be willing to share ideas. Worrying that someone else may steal your research ideas is a recipe for failure and disaster.

17) Be pragmatic. If you want to a study on rare diseases, first of all, ask yourself, how often do you see these cases? Can you finish the study on time?

18) Get your biostatistician involved early in the course of the research! Good, valid research depends more on getting the methodology right rather than towards the end of research completion, when the data has been collected.

19) Do not become a “p-value worshipper”! Remember that p-value can be manipulated by increasing the sample size, but the clinical significance cannot be manipulated

20) How about a study on the influences on TV medical shows and dramas such as ER, House, etc on the choices of future career?

21) As the world progresses, more and more psychiatric cases may be seen in emergency departments. Psychiatric emergencies or mental health is an evolving research area in emergency medicine. Yet, this is one area where not many researches have been done. Bear in mind that ethical issues and getting consent may be challenging in such area.

22) Studies from western countries are not always applicable within the Asian context because Asian population may have different genetic make-up, with different disease manifestation, different socio-economic background, different infectious disease patterns, etc.

I have compiled the entire series of my "scribbled" notes during the talks I attended in ICEM 2010 into a brief report. This report will also be submitted to the university besides the handouts of my own presentations.

You may download the entire series as an ebook. Click here to download in Scribd.

The content in this ebook may be freely distributed for non-commercial, educational purposes provided that nothing is added or removed, including this copyright notice.

If you are placing the ebook link in your site, please provide a link back to the URL of Emergency Medicine Blog at http://emergencymedic.blogspot.com/

For any other queries, please contact cksheng74@yahoo.com


A Brief Report On Lessons I Learned From Selected Talks In ICEM 2010 and 22 Emergency Medicine-Related Research Ideas and Tips Gained From This Conference by Dr. Chew Keng Sheng is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Ethics in Resuscitation

Ethics in Resuscitation

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Other Important Points Not Covered in the Lecture:

The Concept of Patient Autonomy

“Every human being of adult years and sound mind has the right to determine what shall be done with his own body, and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient’s consent commits an assault, for which he is liable”

- Justice Cardozo in Schloendorff v Society of New York Hospital, 105 NE 92 (NY1914)


Bolam Test and Bolitho Test

Under the Bolam test, a doctor is not negligent if he is acting in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical men skilled in that particular art, merely because there is a body of such opinion that takes a contrary view.

In this case, a patient, Mr Bolam, sued the hospital and its doctors for damages, claiming negligence on the part of the doctors in performing electroconvulsive therapy on him which resulted in fractures. The patient also claimed that he did not give informed consent to the hospital doctors.


“. . . (a doctor) is not guilty of negligence if he has acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical men skilled in that particular art . . . a man is not negligent, if he is acting in accordance with such practice merely because there is a body of opinion who would take a contrary view. At the same time that does not mean that a medical man can obstinately and pigheadedly carry on with some old technique if it has been proved to be contrary to what is really substantially the whole of informed medical opinion . . .”

- Judge McNair


Bolitho case - the court must be satisfied that the exponents of a body of professional opinion have a logical basis and had directed their minds to the comparative risks and benefits in reaching a defensible conclusion. The opinion of the expert witnesses must be founded on logic and good sense. It is now a matter for court & not medical opinion to decide standard of professional care

The ability and willingness of the courts in Bolitho case to consider the correctness of a professional view has been extended beyond information disclosure and into treatment. This case arose out of a failure of a hospital doctor to examine and intubate a child experiencing respiratory distress, leading to brain damage through asphyxia. The plaintiff patient had expert evidence that a reasonably competent doctor would have intubated in those circumstances. The defendant doctor had her own expert witnesses saying that non-intubation was a clinically justifiable response.


Reference:
1. A set of power point slides by Assoc Prof Catherine Tay can be downloaded here.

2. Medico-legal articles by Assoc Prof Catherine Tay:

- Informed Consent To Medical Treatment: What Needs To Be Disclosed? Click here
- Recent developments in informed consent: the basis of modern medical ethics. Click here
- Informed Consent in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Click here
- Recent Developments of Informed Consent in Eye Research. Click here

3. Elements of Informed Consent — A Survey of Medical Professionals
Click here

4. sBMJ series
- Biomedical ethics: The basic principles. Click here
- Biomedical ethics: Patients' right. Click here
- Biomedical ethics: Organ transplantation. Click here
- Biomedical ethics: Genetics. Click here