Generative AI

This resource will help you to:

• Understand how generative AI can support creative and academic brainstorming.
• Apply effective prompting strategies to generate relevant ideas.
• Evaluate and refine AI-generated responses to suit your purpose.
• Use AI ethically and responsibly in line with academic integrity guidelines.

Generative AI is like a thinking buddy that never gets tired. Whether you’re stuck choosing a topic, exploring new angles, or trying to organise your thoughts, AI can help spark ideas and get the creative juices flowing. From generating questions to mapping out perspectives, it can support your brainstorming process in ways that feel collaborative, not prescriptive. Just remember - you’re still the driver. AI is there to guide, not decide.

Key principles for students

• AI as a Thinking Partner: Generative AI can help you explore new angles, reframe problems, and expand your thinking. It's not here to do the thinking for you, but to spark your own.
• Prompts Matter: The quality of your question or prompt directly affects the usefulness of the output. Clear, specific prompts = better ideas.
• You are the Editor: AI suggestions are a starting point, not a final product. You will still need to apply critical thinking to shape, refine, and filter ideas.
• Stay Ethical: Use AI to support your thinking, not to replace original work. Always ensure you are acting in accordance with UniSC academic integrity policies.

GenAI for brainstorming: Overview

Step 1: Define your goal

What are you trying to brainstorm - topics, essay angles, research questions, creative ideas? Narrow down what your goal is.

Step 2: Craft your prompt

Use open-ended prompts to generate a broad response. Examples include:

• "Give me 5 ideas for..."
• "What are some different perspectives on..."
• "What questions could I ask about..."

Step 3: Generate and review

Assess the relevance and quality of the ideas generated by AI. Discard what doesn't work.

Step 4: Refine the output

You may like to ask follow-up questions like:

• "Can you expand on the second idea?"
• "What would be a counterargument to this perspective?"
• "How can this perspective be applied in a real-world scenario?"
• "How does [idea 1] differ from [idea 2]?"

Step 5: Take it offline

Use what you have gathered to start researching, mind mapping, or outlining in your own words.

Step 6: Acknowledge that you have used AI

Provide the appropriate acknowledgement for your AI use according to assignment instructions. For more details on how to acknowledge GenAI use, please see the below library guide:

Your prompt could be: "I'm a second-year psychology student writing a 1500-word critical analysis essay on the impact of technology and mental health. The task requires me to explore different perspective and include evidence-based arguments. Can you suggest five possible angles or viewpoints I could explore in this essay, and briefly explain each one?"

AI might suggest:

• The effects of social media on adolescent self-esteem.
• Telehealth and accessibility of mental health services.
• The role of wearable technology in tracking mental health.
• Technology addiction and its cognitive impacts.
• Online communities as sources of social support.

Based on your course concepts and discipline relevant theories, you can then choose one or combine a few to research and develop further. You may also like to ask follow-up questions based on these ideas, as per Step 4 above.

Check out the below video (15:01 mins) by Blazing Zebra (2024) for more detail on prompts and GenAI tools you can use to help with brainstorming.