I haven’t used it extensively for research tasks yet, but I do really worry about that. There is something I feel viscerally when I ‘get’ a paper that often requires a deep look into the mechanics of how a study was run (i.e. reading the whole thing), that’s just not going to come from a skim-read. There’s lots of nuance in the literature my intervention is based off of, that if I didn’t understand, would lead me to inappropriately embellish my results.
I think if I was using research tools, they’d save me a lot of time in the googling phase, but then I’d still skim papers for value, and hand-read the most important ones. Anecdotally, this seems to be what most full-time researchers do.
(I also find talking confidently about the details of papers impresses people I talk to, which can be valuable in and of itself)
There’s definitely something qualitatively different about really reading a paper vs. getting a summary, even a good one. I’ve noticed that when I rely too much on ChatGPT or similar tools to summarize studies, I sometimes end up with a false sense of confidence — like I “get” it, when actually I’ve missed key caveats or limitations that only become clear when reading the methods section or skimming figures.
I totally agree that tools can help in the “discovery” phase — finding relevant papers faster, generating search terms I hadn’t thought of, or even helping me decide which ones are worth digging into. But I still feel like the deep understanding (and the kind of judgment that comes with it) only happens when I go through the paper myself.
Also, yes to your point about being able to talk confidently about the details — I’ve had that experience too, where being fluent in a study’s methods actually changes how seriously people take an idea. That kind of credibility seems hard to fake with summaries alone.
I haven’t used it extensively for research tasks yet, but I do really worry about that. There is something I feel viscerally when I ‘get’ a paper that often requires a deep look into the mechanics of how a study was run (i.e. reading the whole thing), that’s just not going to come from a skim-read. There’s lots of nuance in the literature my intervention is based off of, that if I didn’t understand, would lead me to inappropriately embellish my results.
I think if I was using research tools, they’d save me a lot of time in the googling phase, but then I’d still skim papers for value, and hand-read the most important ones. Anecdotally, this seems to be what most full-time researchers do.
(I also find talking confidently about the details of papers impresses people I talk to, which can be valuable in and of itself)
There’s definitely something qualitatively different about really reading a paper vs. getting a summary, even a good one. I’ve noticed that when I rely too much on ChatGPT or similar tools to summarize studies, I sometimes end up with a false sense of confidence — like I “get” it, when actually I’ve missed key caveats or limitations that only become clear when reading the methods section or skimming figures.
I totally agree that tools can help in the “discovery” phase — finding relevant papers faster, generating search terms I hadn’t thought of, or even helping me decide which ones are worth digging into. But I still feel like the deep understanding (and the kind of judgment that comes with it) only happens when I go through the paper myself.
Also, yes to your point about being able to talk confidently about the details — I’ve had that experience too, where being fluent in a study’s methods actually changes how seriously people take an idea. That kind of credibility seems hard to fake with summaries alone.