AI for academic reading

AI reading tools assist comprehension by simplifying language and highlighting structure. They can:

• Explain complex sentences and terminology in plain English (e.g. turning technical jargon into everyday language)
• Produce quick summaries or key-point lists (note these may omit detail or contain errors)
• Highlight methods, findings, and arguments to guide your reading
• Suggest follow-up questions to check your understanding

Tip: AI can also help rephrase complex English into simpler sentences, which may be especially useful if English isn’t your first language, if you have a support plan, or if you’re returning to study after a break or exploring a new topic.

Semantic Scholar is a search engine covering millions of academic papers. Its Semantic Reader adds “Skimming Highlights” that label key sentences as Goal, Method, or Result, helping you see the structure of a paper more quickly. Some papers also include short AI-generated summaries or “Ask this paper” features, where you can get plain-English answers about the methods or results.

• Best for: Quickly spotting the key contributions and structure of a paper without reading every sentence in detail
• Upload: No upload function — you cannot add your own PDFs
• Limits: Available only on some papers; always return to the full article for detail

Reading-focused extras: citation cards that preview cited papers, a table of contents for quick section jumps, and clickable in-context definitions of technical terms. Optional note-taking is available via Hypothesis.

See the Semantic Reader page for reading features. For an overview of all Semantic Scholar functions (including discovery/search), see our Semantic Scholar guide. 

Consensus doesn’t explain a single paper line by line, but it can help you see how research findings fit together across multiple studies. By typing in a question, you get a summary of whether the evidence generally supports, contradicts, or is mixed on that issue. This can make it easier to place an individual article in context before you read it in detail.

• Best for: Understanding the overall evidence landscape around a question, so you can approach individual papers with clearer expectations
• Upload: Core features do not require uploads (Consensus also offers an optional PDF upload, but this is not recommended for journal articles or module readings)

See the Consensus website for more information and to try the tool.

AI supports comprehension, but it can’t replace academic reading. Think of AI as scaffolding — it supports your work, but it cannot replace it.

Always check AI outputs against the original text, especially the abstract, methods, and conclusions.

Limits for comprehension:

AI can act as scaffolding, but it cannot replace the core skills of academic reading. Always pair AI support with:

• Careful reading of/listening to the full paper
• Awareness of academic conventions (methods, limitations, arguments)
• Searching authoritative sources via LibrarySearch and subject databases
• Critical judgment of a paper’s quality and relevance

For more detailed strategies, see our Reading Journal Articles guide.

Limits for access and coverage:

Be aware of the following limits on access and coverage:

• Many rely on open-access content; paywalled text may be invisible unless you upload the PDF — but uploading copyrighted PDFs into third-party tools may breach licence agreements
• Summaries based on abstracts only can be misleading — check the full text
• Tools often struggle with tables, graphs, or supplementary data

AI tools can support comprehension, but use them safely and legally. The main risk is uploading full PDFs of journal articles, book chapters, or module readings to third-party platforms — this may breach copyright or licence agreements. Use Abertay-supported platforms where possible. Only upload your own notes, drafts, or openly licensed materials (e.g. CC-BY).

Rule of thumb for excerpts

• Safe: Copy a short extract (a few sentences or one paragraph) into ChatGPT or Copilot to clarify meaning or simplify complex language.
• Not safe: Uploading or pasting full articles, book chapters, or large sections of text.

When in doubt, keep it brief and always return to the full article for your academic work. Your tutors expect to see your own critical engagement with the source material, not AI-mediated summaries.

For practical examples and more guidance, see our Copyright for Students guide

Some tools are designed around document uploads. Because of the copyright risks explained above, these should only be used with your own notes, drafts, or openly licensed materials — not with journal articles, book chapters, or module readings.

• ChatPDF: Requires uploads; lets you ask questions about a paper. Best for quickly navigating long documents.
• Elicit: Lets you search research papers and map claims and evidence. Also offers a PDF upload option, but uploading journal articles or module readings is not recommended.
• Claude / ChatGPT premium tiers / Copilot uploads: These platforms accept document uploads, but uploads are not their main feature (except Claude, which is designed for long documents). They should not be used for journal articles or module readings.
• Scholarcy: Built around uploads; summarises articles, highlights key points, and can create flashcards.
• SciSpace: Requires uploads; provides plain-English explanations and highlights from papers.

Note: These tools may look appealing in videos or adverts, but because they rely on uploading full documents, they are not safe to use with copyrighted module readings.

General reliability issues:
AI summaries can vary and sometimes be wrong. This can happen because tools may only access an abstract rather than the full article, they often oversimplify complex arguments, may miss tables or figures, and sometimes even add details that weren’t in the text.

Good practice checks:

• Cross-check AI summaries against the paper’s abstract, methods, and conclusions
• Re-prompt or try another tool if explanations conflict
• Treat AI as a first pass, not the final word

See our guide on Evaluating AI-Generated Content for practical frameworks you can apply when checking AI outputs.

Use these questions to test whether you are engaging critically with the text rather than relying on the AI summary:

• Can I explain this paper’s main argument in my own words, without relying on the AI summary?
• Have I checked the methods and conclusions myself in the full paper?
• Do I understand what the AI tool may have missed (e.g. tables, graphs, nuance)?
• Am I confident in my own judgment of the paper’s quality and relevance?

If you can answer yes to these questions, you’re using AI as intended — as a support for your own critical reading, not a replacement. AI can also be especially helpful if you are returning to study, studying in a second language, or using a support plan, but it should always complement your own engagement with the text.