Assignment

AI Might Summarize, but it Can't Think: AI-assisted lit reviews

Submitted by Katie Perry on June 8th, 2026
Short Description: 

Practical strategies for teaching AI-assisted lit reviews while keeping human analysis and critical thinking central.

Attachments: 
AttachmentSize
Copy of AI Might Summarize, But It Can’t Think_ Teaching Toolkit.docxdisplayed 7 times12.9 KB
Learning Outcomes: 

By the end of this session, students will be able to:

  1. 1. Critically evaluate AI-generated research summaries by identifying strengths, limitations, missing perspectives, and potential inaccuracies.
  2. 2. Assess the credibility and authority of information by verifying sources, citations, and claims presented in AI-generated outputs.
  3. 3. Develop and refine research strategies by using AI tools to generate keywords and then applying those terms in scholarly database searches.
  4. 4. Use citation tracking techniques (backward and forward searching) to identify influential sources and trace scholarly conversations within a research area.
  5. 5. Compare AI-generated research overviews with database search results to identify gaps, omissions, and differences in coverage.
  6. 6. Analyze scholarly literature for themes, patterns, and gaps using close reading techniques.
  7. 7. Synthesize information from multiple sources to support explanatory or argumentative literature reviews.
  8. 8. Apply lateral reading strategies to evaluate the credibility, relevance, and accuracy of AI-generated information.
  9. 9. Select and use AI research tools appropriately based on their strengths, limitations, and intended purposes.
  10. 10. Describe the role of AI as a research support tool rather than a substitute for scholarly inquiry and critical analysis.
Discipline: 
EnglishEnvironmental StudiesPolitical SciencePsychologySociologyWomen's and Gender Studies

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Ability Level:

Tags:

Course Context (e.g. how it was implemented or integrated): 

There are several activities in the document - they don't have to be used all together! Pick and choose activities to get students to think critically about LLM outputs. 

Suggested Citation: 
Perry, Katie. "AI Might Summarize, but it Can't Think: AI-assisted lit reviews." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2026. https://projectcora.org/assignment/ai-might-summarize-it-cant-think-ai-assisted-lit-reviews.
Copyright icon to go along with copyright rules.
All assignments contributed to this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike United States License