ChatGPT for editors: enhancing efficiency and effectiveness

Abstract

This tutorial examines how ChatGPT can assist journal editors in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of academic publishing. It highlights ChatGPT’s key characteristics, focusing on the use of “Custom instructions” to generate tailored responses and plugin integration for accessing up-to-date information. The tutorial presents practical advice and illustrative examples to demonstrate how editors can adeptly employ these features to improve their work practices. It covers the intricacies of developing advanced prompts and the application of zero-shot and few-shot prompting techniques across a range of editorial tasks, including literature reviews, training novice reviewers, and improving language quality. Furthermore, the tutorial addresses potential challenges inherent in using ChatGPT, which include a lack of precision and sensitivity to cultural nuances, the presence of biases, and a limited vocabulary in specialized fields, among others. The tutorial concludes by advocating for an integrated approach, combining ChatGPT’s technological advancements with the critical insight of human editors. This approach emphasizes that ChatGPT should be recognized not as a replacement for human judgment and expertise in editorial processes, but as a tool that plays a supportive and complementary role.