The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Writing Scientific Review Articles
Open accessAbstract
Purpose of Review: With the recent explosion in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and specifically ChatGPT, we sought to determine whether ChatGPT could be used to assist in writing credible, peer-reviewed, scientific review articles. We also sought to assess, in a scientific study, the advantages and limitations of using ChatGPT for this purpose. To accomplish this, 3 topics of importance in musculoskeletal research were selected: (1) the intersection of Alzheimer’s disease and bone; (2) the neural regulation of fracture healing; and (3) COVID-19 and musculoskeletal health. For each of these topics, 3 approaches to write manuscript drafts were undertaken: (1) human only; (2) ChatGPT only (AI-only); and (3) combination approach of #1 and #2 (AI-assisted). Articles were extensively fact checked and edited to ensure scientific quality, resulting in final manuscripts that were significantly different from the original drafts. Numerous parameters were measured throughout the process to quantitate advantages and disadvantages of approaches. Recent Findings: Overall, use of AI decreased the time spent to write the review article, but required more extensive fact checking. With the AI-only approach, up to 70% of the references cited were found to be inaccurate. Interestingly, the AI-assisted approach resulted in the highest similarity indices suggesting a higher likelihood of plagiarism. Finally, although the technology is rapidly changing, at the time of study, ChatGPT 4.0 had a cutoff date of September 2021 rendering identification of recent articles impossible. Therefore, all literature published past the cutoff date was manually provided to ChatGPT, rendering approaches #2 and #3 identical for contemporary citations. As a result, for the COVID-19 and musculoskeletal health topic, approach #2 was abandoned midstream due to the extensive overlap with approach #3. Summary: The main objective of this scientific study was to see whether AI could be used in a scientifically appropriate manner to improve the scientific writing process. Indeed, AI reduced the time for writing but had significant inaccuracies. The latter necessitates that AI cannot currently be used alone but could be used with careful oversight by humans to assist in writing scientific review articles.
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LLM-based generative AI tools have issues with plagiarism.
“Studies highlight three key challenges with content created by LLM-based generative AI tools: (a) plagiarism [5, 6];”
From Artificial intelligence-assisted academic writing: recommendations for ethical use (2025) · cites this paper as [6]
Generative AI tools access publicly available data to generate text, which may produce content that closely or exactly resembles the original source of information.
“Generative AI tools access publicly available data to generate text, which may produce content that closely (or exactly) resembles the original source of information [6].”
From Artificial intelligence-assisted academic writing: recommendations for ethical use (2025) · cites this paper as [6]
Generative AI tools have the ability to produce novel written content on their own.
“Unlike these previous tools, however, generative AI tools have introduced a challenge to traditional notions of academic integrity: rather than simply helping researchers more efficiently conduct or complete research tasks, generative AI tools now have the ability to produce novel written content on their own [5–8].”
From Artificial intelligence-assisted academic writing: recommendations for ethical use (2025) · cites this paper as [6]
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- Authors
- Kacena, M. A., Plotkin, L. I., & Fehrenbacher, J. C.
- Affiliations
- Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center (US)
- Indiana University Indianapolis (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kacena, Melissa A.
- Fehrenbacher, Jill C.
- Venue
- Current Osteoporosis Reports
- Published
- 2024-01-16
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 115-121
- ISSN
- 1544-1873 (ISSN-L)
- 1544-2241
- PMC
- PMC10912250
- OpenAlex
- W4390904004
- Cited by
- 193
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 59 · 2025: 83 · 2024: 51
- FWCI
- 17.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Current Osteoporosis Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- IUScholarWorks (Indiana University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (AG060621/AG060621-05S1/AG060621-05S2, AG078861/AG078861-S1)
- Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NIH UL1TR002529)
- Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center (I01BX006399, I01BX005154)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- ChatGPT, artificial intelligence in scientific writing, AI-assisted writing, plagiarism, citation accuracy, fact-checking, musculoskeletal research
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, Artificial Intelligence, Humans, Writing, Fracture Healing
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