I recently wrote a blog post discussing 4 of the Best AI Tools for Medical Research. One of these tools was ChatPDF, which I regularly use during the research stage of my medical writing. As a medical writer, I find ChatPDF to be an incredibly useful tool for conducting research and gathering information. It can help to expedite research and provide access to knowledge that would be hard or time-consuming to access otherwise. In this article, I would like to show you how I use ChatPDF to summarise an academic article in a fraction of the time.
What is ChatPDF?
ChatPDF is an AI-powered online tool that aims to make reading and understanding PDFs easier and more interactive. It acts a bit like a virtual assistant that you can “chat” with about any PDF document.
Why Use ChatPDF?
During my writing career, I have spent countless hours reading through pages and pages of journal article PDFs. I am usually trying to locate small sections of information to reference or ideas to inform further research. When working in a lab, I also spent many hours looking through PDF documents, searching for a particular experimental technique, dosage, or time point to replicate in my work.
ChatPDF can help to speed up the process of reviewing PDF documents by allowing users to easily navigate to relevant information and avoid unnecessary content. Additionally, it can provide a summary of the document, helping users to quickly determine if it is worth them reading the article in full.
How To Use ChatPDF to Summarise an Academic Article
So, how do I use ChatPDF to summarise an academic article?
As an example, here is a step-by-step guide to how I extracted key information from a recently published scientific article that I was interested in.
The article that I was interested in was titled “Antimicrobial properties of tomato juice and peptides against typhoidal Salmonella.” I found this interesting research when browsing EurekAlert! Science News Releases, something that I like to do every morning to keep up-to-date with recent findings!
Step-by-Step
- So, firstly, I uploaded the PDF document into ChatPDF by dragging and dropping the file into the box.
- This is what I was presented with – a very brief summary of the paper and a few example questions that I could ask about the document.
Research Summary
2. Initially, I just wanted a very brief summary of the research. Here is my input and the response that I received:
This response provides an accurate and effective summary of the entire research paper, including the aim of the research, the key findings, and the importance of the research.
Research Importance
3. Next, I wanted to explore the importance of this research further, and the response I received was accurate and informative:
Research Methods
4. Next, I requested and received a summary of the key methods used in this research:
5. Then, I asked for greater clarity on how the antimicrobial properties of tomatoes were proven, and ChatPDF provided great detail on this. In particular, I like how ChatPDF places circular numbers against sections of its response that correspond with the appropriate page of the document where this is referenced (as circled in the diagram below). You can click on these circular numbers and be taken directly to the relevant section of the PDF. Quick and easy!
What is important to remember here is that, while ChatPDF can extract and interpret information in text form (including anything written within a table), it is unable to read figures or perform any computational or statistical analysis, so it really is ‘say what you see’ when it comes to extracting data. But for me, the value is in being guided to the right section of the document to find specific values – the interpretation I can do myself!
Study Limitations
6. An important part of the story for any academic writer is the limitations of a study! ChatPDF identified the limitations of this study accurately based on what was present in the document.
7. You can also use ChatPDF to think about how studies could be improved in the future. These kinds of questions can help to guide the design of future experiments.
What’s My Verdict on Using ChatPDF to Summarise an Academic Article?
Overall, ChatPDF has proven to be incredibly useful for extracting the relevant information from this study so that I can write an accurate summary of the article. I double-checked all the information that I was provided and the responses that I received were both accurate and relevant.
While the applications of ChatPDF are still limited with regard to academic research, this tool does help to cut down on reading time, allowing you to quickly locate specific information without manually searching through the entire document. By asking the right questions, ChatPDF can also clarify confusing or complex information. Remember, though, that ChatPDF can only provide responses based on the text present within the PDF document. This means that any critical analysis and comparisons with existing literature still require extensive human input. Also, remember to always verify the answers you receive against the original document when using ChatPDF to summarise an academic article.
