The Historian's Craft & AI (Part II)

Happy new year everyone!

This week will be a bit of a hodge-podge as there are some loose ends that need to be tied up. Let’s begin once again with our high-level research process diagram.

For search and bibliography tasks, we’ve already discussed traditional library tools as well as Liner and Google Deep Research, two recently launched AI search and summary services. Of course, Google Scholar is an excellent resource as well. After reviewing Liner’s summary of academic sources on Venetian diplomacy, I searched Scholar using “Venetian Diplomacy” as the search phrase. It found a lot of excellent material, including a dissertation by Tessa Beverly, a scholar who studied the Venetian diplomatic corp from 1454 – 1494. Surprisingly, these items were not included in the results from Liner or Google Deep Research. Unfortunately for me, it looks like this topic has also been well-researched.

I use EndNote (Clarivate) for bibliographical management. There are a variety of citation tools on the market, Zotero and Mendeley being two popular alternatives. Citation and bibliographic management software has been around for a while. And though these tools are not AI-powered – at least not yet – they play a vital role in any research project. The work of correctly formatting citations alone makes these tools worth having. As an initial reading list takes shape, reading commences, and so does note-taking. About 20 years ago, I tried Dragon, one of the first AI enabled speech-to-text products to hit the market. It was terrible. That is no longer the case. I use Google’s voice typing all the time to take notes. It’s free (Dragon retails for $1,000) and accurate. Yes, it still requires some manual intervention. Even so, it has saved me a lot of typing time. Some writers can compose articles through dictation alone. Churchill dictated many of his books, talking while his secretaries dutifully typed everything he said. Not me. I have to sweat every word.

When the writing begins, I sometimes use ChatGPT, Llama, or other large language model to flesh out an initial draft. This has changed recently as I increasingly find AI-generated writing to be bland and boring. I usually end up rewriting everything anyway. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to write. But having said that, I have fallen in love with Grammarly. Grammarly sharpens my writing, improves my style, and fixes hundreds of grammatical errors. This is the way AI tools should work, as knowledgeable assistants not substitutes.