Study Guide: Alex for Academic Researchers and Professors
Your personal reference for applying Alex to research and academic work. This guide covers the most valuable use cases in your discipline — with ready-to-run prompts and a practice progression.
What This Guide Is Not
This is not a habit formation guide (see SELF-STUDY.md for that). This is a domain use-case library — the specific things Alex can do in your research work, and how to do them well.
Core Principle for Researchers
Alex is most useful to researchers not as an answer machine, but as a thinking partner that helps you structure, challenge, and communicate your own expertise.
The fundamental risk to manage: hallucination. Alex will generate plausible-sounding citations, findings, and claims that do not exist. Never use Alex-generated factual claims without verification against primary sources. This is non-negotiable in academic work.
The fundamental opportunity: Alex is excellent at structuring complex ideas, identifying gaps in reasoning, stress-testing arguments, and translating technical content for different audiences — none of which require factual memory.
The Five Use Cases
1. Literature Structure and Gap Analysis
Alex cannot search the literature — but it can help you think through it once you have it.
When to use: Before writing a literature review, or when you feel like you’re drowning in papers and can’t see the structure.
Prompt pattern:
@alex I'm writing a literature review on [topic] for [purpose: thesis / journal article / grant proposal].
I've read work in these areas: [list 3-5 themes or author clusters].
Help me map how these bodies of work relate to each other — where they agree,
where they diverge, and what each one leaves unaddressed.
Follow-up prompts:
Based on this map, what's the most significant gap that my research could credibly address?
What theoretical tension in this literature would make the strongest case for a new contribution?
Play the role of a critical peer reviewer. What would you say is missing from this framing?
2. Research Proposal Development
When to use: Structuring a grant application, research pitch, or conference proposal.
Prompt pattern:
@alex I'm developing a research proposal for [funder / conference / internal review].
My core research question is: [state it].
The gap I'm addressing is: [brief description].
Help me structure the argument for why this question matters and why my approach is the right one.
Follow-up prompts:
What are the three strongest objections a reviewer might raise? How do I pre-empt each one?
Rewrite the significance section for a [non-specialist / interdisciplinary / policy] audience.
What's the weakest part of this proposal? Be direct.
3. Methodology Documentation and Justification
When to use: Writing up your methodology section; preparing for a methods review; explaining choices to supervisors or reviewers.
Prompt pattern:
@alex I'm documenting the methodology for [study/project].
My approach is [qualitative/quantitative/mixed/computational — brief description].
Help me write a methodology justification that covers:
1) Why this approach fits the research question
2) What I considered and rejected
3) The key limitations I'll need to acknowledge
Follow-up prompts:
What epistemological or paradigmatic assumptions does this methodology make explicit or implicit?
A reviewer favoring [alternative methodology] would argue my approach is insufficient. What's the strongest version of that critique and how do I respond?
4. Writing Assistance (Structure and Argumentation, Not Prose)
When to use: When you’re stuck on structure, can’t make an argument land, or need to see your logic from the outside.
The key constraint: use Alex for structure and argumentation — write the prose yourself. This produces much better academic writing and keeps your voice.
Prompt pattern:
@alex I'm writing [section: introduction / discussion / conclusion] of my paper on [topic].
My core argument is: [one sentence].
I've made these supporting points: [list them].
What's the logical structure that would make this argument most compelling to a skeptical reader in my field?
Follow-up prompts:
The transition between point 2 and point 3 is weak. What's the connecting logic I'm missing?
Read my conclusion. Does it follow from the argument, or does it overclaim? Be specific.
I'm trying to make [claim]. What's the minimum evidence I'd need to make this claim defensible?
5. Teaching and Knowledge Dissemination
When to use: Preparing lectures, designing seminars, writing public-facing summaries of research, or supervising students on your research area.
Prompt pattern:
@alex I'm preparing a [lecture / seminar / workshop] on [topic] for [audience: undergrad / masters / policy makers / public].
The audience has [brief description of prior knowledge].
Help me design a session that moves them from [starting point] to [learning objective] in [duration].
Follow-up prompts:
Design three discussion questions that force students to engage with the core tension in this topic.
Write an executive summary of this research for a policy audience with no academic background.
Prioritize: what it means, what to do about it, what's uncertain.
What analogy would help a first-year student understand [core concept] intuitively before the technical explanation?
Your First Week Back: Practice Plan
| Day | Task | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Use the Literature Structure pattern on your current or next paper | 20 min |
| Day 2 | Try the Writing Assistance pattern on a section you’re currently drafting | 20 min |
| Day 3 | Run a Proposal Development session on an idea you haven’t fully articulated yet | 30 min |
| Day 4 | Use Role Assignment: ask Alex to review something from a skeptical reviewer’s perspective | 15 min |
| Day 5 | Save three insights from the week with /saveinsight | 10 min |
Month 2–3: Advanced Applications
Interdisciplinary Translation When publishing or presenting to audiences outside your primary discipline, use Alex to stress-test your framing for that audience before you finalize.
@alex I'm presenting this research to an audience from [adjacent field].
Where will they lose me or push back? What would I need to explain that I currently assume?
Comparative Analysis Scaffolding When comparing cases, frameworks, or studies across your literature:
@alex I'm comparing [A] and [B] across these dimensions: [list].
What am I missing? What comparison axis would be most revealing to my research question?
Supervision and Student Mentorship When helping students with their research:
@alex A student's thesis argument is: [summarize it].
What are the three structural problems with this argument that they need to fix before it's defensible?
Caveats to Internalize
- All factual claims from Alex require verification. Citations especially. Alex confidently hallucinates references.
- Alex does not have access to paywalled literature. It reasons from its training data, which has a knowledge cutoff.
- Alex is not a substitute for domain expertise. It is a tool for extending what you already know, not replacing what you don’t.
- Ethical use: If Alex helps you structure an argument, the ideas and verification are yours. Be clear about AI use in line with your institution’s policies.
Continue your practice: SELF-STUDY.md — the 30/60/90-day habit guide.