ChatGPT for Studying: How to use the AI-powered chatbot to learn anything you want

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot designed to facilitate natural language communication between humans and machines. It is a sophisticated language model created by OpenAI that uses deep learning algorithms to generate human-like responses to user inputs.

ChatGPT stands for “Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer” and is built on the transformer architecture, which is a neural network architecture that has been shown to be highly effective in natural language processing tasks.

ChatGPT is pre-trained on massive amounts of text data, meaning it has already gathered a vast amount of knowledge about the world and can understand and respond to a wide range of questions and inputs. Users can ask ChatGPT a question or give it a prompt, and it will generate a response based on its pre-existing knowledge.

While ChatGPT is still relatively new, it has already made a significant impact in the field of natural language processing, and its potential applications are vast. As technology continues to evolve and improve, it is likely that we will see ChatGPT and similar AI-powered chatbots become increasingly integrated into our daily lives, transforming the way we interact with machines and each other.

How to use ChatGPT?

Now that you have a basic understanding of what ChatGPT is, it is time to take the next step and learn how to use it. Once you sign up and login into ChatGPT by visiting OpenAI’s ChatGPT page, you are set to go!

Here are some general tips on how to use ChatGPT effectively:

• Start by giving a clear prompt: When searching for the most relevant and useful answer from ChatGPT, using specific prompts is the best way to go since vague or open-ended prompts can lead to irrelevant or unhelpful answers.
• Use natural language: Since ChatGPT is designed to understand natural language, using overly technical language can make it difficult for ChatGPT to interpret your prompts.
• Be patient: Yes, ChatGPT is powerful, but it doesn’t mean that it is perfect. If you can’t get the answer you are searching for on your first prompt, try rephrasing it or providing more context.
• Experiment with different prompts and topics: One of the many advantages of ChatGPT is that it has been trained on a huge amount of data, which makes it eligible for answering a variety of questions and prompts. So don’t be afraid to experiment with different prompts and see what kind of responses you get.

Fact-Checking ChatGPT

Of course, just because ChatGPT is powerful, it doesn’t mean that it will always provide correct information, which can lead to confusion in your studies. Let’s have a look at an example where ChatGPT gets confused.

I asked ChatGPT, “Who led Rome after Marcus Aurelius?” and while it provided the correct information at first, when I stated something completely false, ChatGPT confirmed the incorrect information:

So what can you do to confirm that the information that you are getting is correct? Well, there are 3 great ways to do so:

1. Ask ChatGPT to cite the sources: After getting an answer, simply giving the prompt “Cite your sources for this information with website links” will have ChatGPT provide the sources. You can check the links of the sources to be sure. In my case, it gave sources that didn’t contain false information.
2. Do a Google Search for the information that you are not sure of: If you are not sure about the answer you are getting, or you are new to the topic, doing a quick search on Google to make sure it is correct is a helpful way of making sure you are learning the right information.
3. Providing the information yourself: You can ensure you are not getting anything wrong by just providing a part of your study material (if you don’t have an E-book version, get an OCR reader) and asking ChatGPT to summarise it or just asking related questions.

Top 10 Ways to use ChatGPT for Studying

Now that you know the basics of using ChatGPT, it is time to look at how it can be used for studying and taking your productivity to the next level:

• Summarising and explaining notes: If you have study material that is long and/or hard to understand, you can ask ChatGPT to summarise it for you and, even better, provide bullet points or simplify the language.
• Memorising information: If you are having a hard time memorising a specific concept, you can ask ChatGPT to write a catchy song about it or explain it with jokes to help you remember.
• Getting writing advice: If you have a homework assignment or essay you have written but are unsure about the quality of the writing, paste it into ChatGPT and ask for writing advice on your writing. If you want to take it one step further, you can check out the best ChatGPT prompts for essay writing.
• Testing your knowledge: After you have studied a section and want to test yourself, you can paste that section into ChatGPT and ask it to create practice questions. You can state that you want the answer only after you have answered them yourself to test your knowledge.
• Getting inspiration: If you are stuck thinking about what to write your essay on, give an overview of the concepts you can write about, and ask for the top 10 interesting ideas.
• Creating a study plan: To organise your study plan, start off by giving ChatGPT the exact dates of the day, your exam weeks, semester dates, and the subjects you want to study for while pointing out the subject that you need more time for, asking it to create a full-on study plan for you.
• Note-taking: ChatGPT offers a “Note Taking” prompt that allows you to take notes on any topic. Simply type in the topic you want to take notes on, and ChatGPT will provide you with a summary of related information. ChatGPT also offers an organisation feature that allows you to categorise and label your notes. You can create different categories for different topics or subjects and easily access your notes later on.
• Exam preparation: ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for helping you review and reinforce key concepts for your exam preparation. Start by identifying the topics or areas you need to focus on, and then use ChatGPT to generate questions or prompts related to those topics. You can also use ChatGPT to generate study guides or summaries or to get additional context and information on concepts you’re struggling with.
• Learning how to code: When it comes to coding, ChatGPT can be one of the best tools to help you. If you are just starting to code, ask ChatGPT to give you an introduction to a specific programming language. If you already know the basics, try asking more specific questions or debugging your code. You can also try asking ChatGPT to write a piece of code and explain it in detail to learn by practice. 
• Checking your homework: To ensure you have the perfect homework, paste it into ChatGPT and ask it to give you feedback on how you can improve the writing and what topics you can improve to make it more full.

5 Best ChatGPT Prompts for Students

Now that you have some ideas for using ChatGPT for studying, you may wonder if there are any specific ways to give prompts to make the most out of it. There are! Let’s now look at some of the best ways to create prompts in ChatGPT to get the best answers.

#1 Instructing ChatGPT to act as someone

Having ChatGPT act as a person can generate some of the best answers you are looking for. While you can instruct it to act as your teacher, or study buddy, there are other interesting ways that you can take advantage of.

You can have ChatGPT acting as a stand-up comedian and explaining complicated concepts in a fun way, or you can have it acting as a famous person with a unique style of expression to help you remember things. In the example below, I asked ChatGPT to explain special relativity acting as Snoop Dogg:

 

#2 Asking ChatGPT for step-by-step instructions for solving a problem

Sometimes, getting the final answer may not be enough to understand how to solve a problem, especially in physics and mathematics. You can ask ChatGPT for help in situations like these by basically using a prompt that goes, “I will give you a problem, and I want you to solve it while explaining it to me step by step. Here is the problem:”

Here is an example of this prompt on a basic physics problem:

 

#3 Creating a study schedule with exact dates

Creating a study plan may be harder than it sounds to some of us because there are many factors to consider. Fortunately, ChatGPT can help you to get over the struggle of creating a schedule if you provide a detailed prompt like:

“I want you to create a study schedule with dates for me. The exact date today is [Today’s Date]. I have my exam week starting on [Exam Week Date] and I have exams for Physics, Mathematics, and English Language. I have “X” hours available each weekday and “Y” hours available for each day of the weekend. I come back from school at “Z” PM on the weekdays and have no school on weekends. Keep in mind that I should be focusing more on [Subject] since it is the subject I am struggling with. After creating the schedule, break the weeks down and plan the days for me.”

This will create a helpful answer like the example below:

 

#4 Making ChatGPT write songs to help you memorise

We all have that one favourite artist that we remember the lyrics of almost immediately after the first listen. And with ChatGPT, you can create songs about the topic that you are struggling to memorise in the style of any artist!

You just need to give it a prompt saying, “Write a song in the style of [Artist] that Explains [Topic]”. Here is an example where we generated Drake-like lyrics explaining Cell Structure:

 

#5 Asking ChatGPT to provide the best prompts for ChatGPT

Even though we have explored some of the best prompts, you may still need other ones to complete different tasks. One of the best ways to do that is to make ChatGPT write the best prompt for your specific need to get the ideal answer!

You can use this prompt to have ChatGPT working as a prompt generator: “You are a prompt generator that generates the best prompts to get the best possible answers from an AI. Generate a prompt that does the following:”

Here is an example where we asked ChatGPT to create a prompt to make itself create the best daily schedule:

 

About the Author
Oğulcan Tezcan is a writer, translator, editor, and an accomplished engineer. Oğulcan is also a keen researcher and digital market analyst, with a particular interest in self-development, productivity, and human behaviour.