Huanfa Chen

Huanfa Chen

he/him

Associate Professor in Spatial Data Science, UCL CASA

Using ChatGPT in academic accessments

1 minute read

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Updates 2025/06/07

I find the following guidelines for using AI Text Generators (e.g. ChatGPT) quite comprehensive, which is from my colleague Thomas.

AI text generators (e.g. ChatGPT) should not be used to produce any original text. All the text in your submission should originate from you, through setting down your own ideas in your own words (supported by relevant quotations from properly cited sources, where appropriate).

The following are acceptable uses of AI for this task:

  • Correcting spelling, grammar, syntax: It is fine to give your own text to generative AI software (or indeed, to another person for the purposes of proofreading) and ask it to suggest corrections.
  • Generating ideas: It is fine to ask an AI for ideas around your topic and your approach, which you can then go away and explore.
  • Help with writing code: It is fine to ask an AI to help you with writing code, either by providing your own code for correction, or by asking for code to achieve a specific goal.

However, you should carefully examine and test any code to which AI has contributed. There is no guarantee that it will do exactly what you request.

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Book notes of Science Research Writing

4 minute read

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This post contains the notes from reading this book: Glasman-Deal, H. (no date) Science research writing for non-native speakers of English. London Hackensack: Imperial college press Distributed by World scientific publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. Read more

LLM prompt for academic writing

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Can large language models help us improve our writing? Absolutely! But hold on—they’re not great at turning a single sentence into a fully developed paragraph; that often leads to results that miss the mark. Instead, their real power lies in refining and enhancing existing paragraphs, making your ideas clearer and more polished. For non-native researchers, this can be an invaluable tool to communicate complex thoughts with precision and confidence. Read more

Introduction to Overleaf

3 minute read

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Updates 2025/02/11 TL;DR: Using overleaf is much better than Microsoft Word (or MS Word) for academic writing that involves lots of formulas, and is very convenient for collaborative writing. UCL provides free and life-long Overleaf license.

Problems of MS Word in academic writing

  1. There are obvious differences between the desktop software of MS Word and the MS Word 365 on a browser, especially the formulas and figures.
  2. MS Word would crash if the file contains more than 100 pages, such as PhD dissertations.
  3. It is very hard to maintain lots of mathematical formulas in MS Word.
  4. It is time-consuming to change the template of MS Word. For example, IEEE journals requires two-column layout in submissions, which is a nightmare for MS Word.
  5. There is always a conflict if multiple people are simultaneously editing a Word doc via OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.
  6. etc …

Benefits of using Overleaf

  1. It is totally web-based and no installation is required.
  2. Many universities (e.g. UCL) provide free and life-long license of Overleaf, which allows many collaborators for one project.
  3. It is very easy to change the template. For example, if my paper submission to Journal A is rejected and I want to submit it to Journal B, it may take 30 minutes to change the template on Overleaf and resubmit. If I use MS Word, it might take hours or days.
  4. It has a rich text mode (see link), which resembles MS Word interface.
  5. It has functionality of “Track Changes” (see link) and “Add comments” (see link).
  6. It can be integrated with Github, Zotero, etc.
  7. There are lots of template of Overleaf. You can use it to write papers, prepare slides (using Beamer), prepare and update CVs.

Problems of using Overleaf

  1. The learning curve of Overleaf is quite steep. However, it is worthy for a four-year PhD and you don’t need to learn everything about Overleaf in one go (think about how you learn Python).
  2. As Overleaf is on a browser and depends on their server, sometimes the connection is unstable (but this is quite rare!).
  3. Some people don’t use Overleaf or resist using Overleaf. If your coauthor is one of them, you can either teach them to use Overleaf or download the Overleaf paper as MS Word document and send it to them. The latter way is really a pain, as you will maintain two versions of a paper in two different formats.

Tutorials of Overleaf

  1. UCL webpage and overleaf course at UCL: see link.
  2. 30-minute tutorial from Overleaf (link). Please note that you don’t need to learn everything about overleaf and Latex in one go. You can download an Overleaf template and write your own draft using template, and gradually learn Overleaf techniques when needed.
  3. Overleaf templates (link). Here you can find templates for UCL dissertation, Springer Nature LaTeX Template, etc. You can find more templates from Google/Github/CASA folks.
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