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. 2025 Apr 18;10(1):22.
doi: 10.1186/s41077-025-00350-6.

Artificial intelligence-assisted academic writing: recommendations for ethical use

Adam Cheng  1 , Aaron Calhoun  2 , Gabriel Reedy  3
Affiliations

Artificial intelligence-assisted academic writing: recommendations for ethical use

Adam Cheng et al. Adv Simul (Lond). .

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools have been selectively adopted across the academic community to help researchers complete tasks in a more efficient manner. The widespread release of the Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) platform in 2022 has made these tools more accessible to scholars around the world. Despite their tremendous potential, studies have uncovered that large language model (LLM)-based generative AI tools have issues with plagiarism, AI hallucinations, and inaccurate or fabricated references. This raises legitimate concern about the utility, accuracy, and integrity of AI when used to write academic manuscripts. Currently, there is little clear guidance for healthcare simulation scholars outlining the ways that generative AI could be used to legitimately support the production of academic literature. In this paper, we discuss how widely available, LLM-powered generative AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT) can help in the academic writing process. We first explore how academic publishers are positioning the use of generative AI tools and then describe potential issues with using these tools in the academic writing process. Finally, we discuss three categories of specific ways generative AI tools can be used in an ethically sound manner and offer four key principles that can help guide researchers to produce high-quality research outputs with the highest of academic integrity.

Keywords: Academic writing; Artificial intelligence; ChatGPT; Ethics; Large language models.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Not applicable. Consent for publication: Not Applicable. Competing interests: Adam Cheng is an editorial board member and a former Associate Editor of the journal Simulation in Healthcare. Aaron Calhoun is Associate Editor-in-Chief and an editorial board member of the journal Simulation in Healthcare. Gabriel Reedy is Editor-in-Chief and an editorial board member of the journal Advances in Simulation.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
ChatGPT 4o response to the prompt: ‘Can you please provide a list of ways ChatGPT can be ethically used to assist authors in writing articles for medical journals?’
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Ethical use of AI generative tools in writing
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Author checklist—key considerations for the ethical use of generative AI tools in manuscript writing
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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