A Prompt Cookbook for the Full Academic Paper Lifecycle

What it does

This repository is a curated markdown collection of copy-paste ChatGPT prompts organized across the entire arc of scholarly writing. Templates cover brainstorming research questions, generating outlines and abstracts, drafting methodology and results sections, rewriting paragraphs in academic voice, and summarizing complex texts. The author also links to a custom GPT that parses PDFs to generate literature review sections.

The interesting bit

The prompts are structured like an assembly manual for a research paper, treating ChatGPT as a modular ghostwriter rather than a conversational partner. The author includes a blunt warning that ChatGPT may invent references—a rare moment of academic honesty in the prompt-engineering space.

Key highlights

• Covers the complete paper lifecycle: brainstorming, every major section from abstract to conclusion, language polishing, and summarization
• Includes a linked Custom GPT that parses PDFs and extracts themes for literature review generation
• Explicitly warns users to double-check references because ChatGPT hallucinates citations
• Document-aware prompts (PDF summarization, figure explanation) require GPT-4 access
• Offers practical workarounds for token limits, including a link to a prompt splitter tool

Caveats

• The README warns that ChatGPT may generate fake references; any literature review output requires manual fact-checking
• PDF-aware prompts and document uploads only work with GPT-4, leaving lower-tier users with text-only templates

Verdict

Worth bookmarking if you are a student or researcher who treats ChatGPT as a sparring partner for rough drafts. If you expect validated citations or automated tooling, look elsewhere.