Have Pen, Laptop, and ChatGPT, Will Publish (guest post) – Daily Nous

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Have Pen, Laptop, and ChatGPT, Will Publish (guest post)

By Justin Weinberg. January 19, 2026 at 9:00 am

How, as a researcher, can you use AI tools like ChatGPT in a way that doesn’t compromise your integrity, creativity, and independence?

In the following guest post, Jimmy Alfonso Licon (Arizona State University) explains how he does it, laying out how he approaches his writing process and the roles he assigns ChatGPT in it.

As Dr. Licon describes it, his “resulting workflow is neither purely human nor AI-written.”

Those who make use of AI in their research and writing are encouraged to share their methods and processes in the comments. Also of particular interest is how human-AI “hybrid” works should be treated, institutionally (by journals, universities). Discussion welcome.

(A version of this piece first appeared at Dr. Licon’s newsletter, Uncommon Wisdom.)

[“Human Hang-Up Machine” by Agnes Denes]

Have Pen, Laptop, and ChatGPT, Will Publish
or How I Use AI Without Sacrificing Creativity and Independence, by Jimmy Alfonso Licon

People sometimes imagine writing as a flash of inspiration, a heroic sprint at the keyboard, and then a finished paper. My own process is considerably less cinematic and much more modular. It involves a pile of printed articles, a pen, a computer, and a large language model. Each plays a specific role. And together, they help me turn a half-formed idea into a shareable, defensible piece of scholarship.

I usually start with a nagging thought. An irritation with a familiar argument, or a pattern I see across different debates, or a question that just won’t leave me alone—something that continues to bug me. At this stage, I begin by writing down a very rough abstract: a paragraph or two sketching the core claim, the basic structure of the argument, and why it might matter. It is only meant to capture the rough intuition. Nothing beyond that. The point is to get the idea out of my head and onto paper where I can see it, poke at it, and at some point, ask questions about. The three main questions I ask are: is the idea genuinely novel? Is it interesting enough? Is it intellectually defensible? The answer must be affirmative in each case before I proceed.

So for the next step, I hunt down the relevant literature by asking ChatGPT, surfing Google Scholar, and asking colleagues who work on similar stuff. That means scanning databases, following citations, and running it by ChatGPT, prompting it to analyze the idea like a referee at a top journal. If I find that someone has already the same article—or something close enough—I will usually shelve the idea. Sometimes, though, it means shifting the focus, narrowing the scope, or locating a gap or tension in the literature. The goal here is to avoid writing something redundant.

 Editor’s Note: The featured image at the top by WP AI. –DrWeb

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Have Pen, Laptop, and ChatGPT, Will Publish (guest post) – Daily Nous

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