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Using Generative AI: A Guide for Students

This guide is for students interested in responsible use of generative AI in academic work. It covers deciding if/when to use AI tools in academic work, prompt writing, citing AI, and ethical considerations of AI tools so students can engage thoughtfully

AI Features in Library Subscriptions

A number of library e-resource platforms have begun to incorporate AI-based tools.

Britannica Academic

ASK Britannica AI is now live on the Britannica Academic site. This is the new advance search feature using natural language questions providing fact-based answers from Britannica content. Find more details here.

CatSearch: Library Search Assistant

CatSearch now includes an AI-powered Search Assistant. It’s designed to help users explore academic content by asking natural language questions. The Assistant searches MSU Library resources and identifies the five most relevant sources based on abstracts and descriptions. It provides answers with in-line citations and allows further exploration of additional resources within CatSearch.

EBook Central

The Ebook Central Research Assistant aims to guide students to quickly assess the relevance of each book and its chapters, helping to review, analyze and explore new ideas with ease. Learn more about how it works here.

JSTOR

This link opens in a new wiJSTOR now includes "Experimental" semantic search results, and an AI research tool, details here. Users who are signed into a personal account and have authenticated through their subscribing institution should see a pop-up that asks if they would like to sign up to try the tool. If you do not see this pop-up and believe you should, please email support@jstor.org.

ProQuest 

This AI-powered research companion enhances students' academic work by streamlining the research process. It offers improved search functionality, document analysis capabilities, and quick relevance evaluation, while also providing guidance on topic selection and concept comprehension. Read more about this tool here.

Available in the following products that the MSU Library subscribes to:

Statista

This link opens in a new windStatista provides data about finance, markets, politics, and society across over 170 industries and over 150 countries. Statista integrates data from many sources into one platform with ready-made data tables and visualizations. Sources of information include market research, trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases. Its Research AI tool references data curated by Statista and accesses GPT-4 Turbo for conversational question & answer, and search. Reach more about how Statista Research AI works.

Worldcat.org

WorldCat searches collections of libraries around the globe. Create and sign in with an individual account to see AI-generated book recommendations. Find more details on WorldCat's blog.

Some text on this page was adapted from the AI Tools for Research guide from Temple University, which is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Coming Soon

EndNote 2025

EndNote 2025 will include AI features to enhance your research discovery and writing process, helping you save time by quickly digesting key information from documents and papers, generating structured outlines from paper topics, and assisting with the publishing process. It is expected to be released sometime in mid-late April.