Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38163049›Full record

ArticlePerspectives on medical education2023

Will ChatGPT's Free Language Editing Service Level the Playing Field in Science Communication?: Insights from a Collaborative Project with Non-native English Scholars.

Lorelei Lingard, Madawa Chandritilake, Merel de Heer, Jennifer Klasen, Fury Maulina, Francisco Olmos-Vega, Christina St-Onge

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Perspectives on medical education, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. The transformative impact of large language models on medical writing and publishing: current applications, challenges and future directions.The Korean journal of physiology & pharmacology : official journal of the Korean Physiological Society and the Korean Society of Pharmacology · 2024
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Lorelei LingardCentre for Education Research & Innovation, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.ORCID 0000-0002-4150-3355
Madawa ChandritilakeFaculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.ORCID 0000-0001-5644-264X
Merel de HeerAmsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Research in Medical Education, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Jennifer KlasenUniversity Digestive Health Care Center, Department of Visceral Surgery, St. Clara Hospital and University Hospital Basel, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0001-8355-1606
Fury MaulinaFaculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands.ORCID 0000-0001-8748-0569
Francisco Olmos-VegaDepartment of Medicine and Health Profession Education Center, Universitéde Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada.ORCID 0000-0003-1629-4309
Christina St-OngeDepartment of Medicine and Health Profession Education Center, Universitéde Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada.ORCID 0000-0001-5313-0456

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

ChatGPT has been widely heralded as a way to level the playing field in scientific communication through its free language editing service. However, such claims lack systematic evidence. A writing scholar (LL) and six non-native English scholars researching health professions education collaborated on this Writer's Craft to fill this gap. Our overarching aim was to provide experiential evidence about ChatGPT's performance as a language editor and writing coach. We implemented three cycles of a systematic procedure, describing how we developed our prompts, selected text for editing, incrementally prompted to refine ChatGPT's responses, and analyzed the quality of its language edits and explanations. From this experience, we offer five insights, and we conclude that the optimism about ChatGPT's capacity to level the playing field for non-native English writers should be tempered. In the writer's craft section we offer simple tips to improve your writing in one of three areas: Energy, Clarity and Persuasiveness. Each entry focuses on a key writing feature or strategy, illustrates how it commonly goes wrong, teaches the grammatical underpinnings necessary to understand it and offers suggestions to wield it effectively. We encourage readers to share comments on or suggestions for this section on Twitter, using the hashtag: #how'syourwriting?

Indexed as

CommunicationLanguageHumansPersuasive CommunicationWriting

Identifiers

PMID38163049
PMCPMC10756157

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.