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In the years since the launch of ChatGPT, AI tools have developed a bad reputation in the academic world for how easy they make it for students to cheat, passing off the work of a large language model as their own. Even if an LLM can produce writing for you that doesn’t come off as unnatural and riddled with hallucinations, you’ll be shortchanging yourself, because you won’t actually absorb any of the material.

But that’s not to say these tools serve no purpose in the academic world. If used correctly, they can actually help you study more efficiently. Here are five ways you can use AI in your schoolwork without cheating—or cheating yourself.

Use ChatGPT to discuss concepts

One study technique I’ve previously recommended is simply having a conversation with another person who doesn’t know anything about the topic you’re studying, to identify areas where your own understanding is lacking. It’s a great option because it helps you make connections between concepts as you’re working out how to explain them to someone else, and it boosts your confidence in the subject matter when you are able to present it as the expert. But you might not always have someone around to serve as the uninformed rube in your roleplaying, which is when ChatGPT can help you out.

When I was in grad school, I asked ChatGPT to allow me to “teach” it about a topic I was studying—community-based health interventions—and we “discussed” different levels of community engagement. ChatGPT actually had interesting questions that helped me think of creative solutions I could investigate in the course of my work.

As the American Psychological Association notes, going back and forth with the language model like this not only helps you think critically and creatively, it also helps you practice managing technology in our changing world—a win-win.

Use AI to summarize articles

If you have to read a ton of articles or reports, try getting an AI tool to summarize them for you. This is great when you need to compare similarities or differences between pieces of research or get top-line bullet points to help you round out a paper. I fed ChatGPT an old article and asked for a summary and the language model took about 30 seconds to condense 61 pages into one key paragraph, highlighting the study design, the study goals, its findings, and its recommendations. This gave me a good idea of whether it was worth further study.

If you’ve only got a few documents to read, it’s still best to do it yourself, but this trick that can come in handy if you’ve got a large number of them you’re looking to sort through quickly. Just make sure you double-check the summary against the source document before you take anything in it as gospel.

My favorite tool for doing this is Google’s NotebookLM. Despite my broader hesitancy about AI, I use this free software frequently because I find it’s more like a personal assistant than a source of knowledge. It is similar to ChatGPT and other language models in that you can ask it questions via text-entry box, but dissimilar in that it only pulls answers from resources you’ve provided it. You upload PDFs, links, YouTube videos, and whatever else you want to serve as source material, then NotebookLM helps you sort through that material.

When you’re using ChatGPT, it pulls answers from the entire internet, and can make serious mistakes as a result. With NotebookLM, anything it generates includes a citation you can click that reveals the exact spot it pulled the info from in your cache of resources. Instead of doing the work for you, this tool just helps you make sense of and organize all your materials.

Use ChatGPT to streamline your notes

If your notes are difficult to read or sort through, ChatGPT can help. In grad school, I assigned each of my classes a Google Doc and took notes in it all semester, but inevitably, each document eventually got disorganized, chaotic, and nearly impossible to navigate. As a test, I put my entire semester’s worth of notes for Research Methods into ChatGPT and asked it to pull out the most important information. Not only did it extract the nine steps of research planning and implementation and the principals of the Belmont Report (which were major parts of the midterm), but it reminded me how much of my grade was determined by each test, a fact I had apparently jotted down somewhere in that mess of words. It particularly emphasized things I had written down multiple times, creating a perfect study guide.

Use AI to create flashcards and quiz yourself

Flashcards and practice quizzes are excellent ways to study because they force you to use active recall to pull information from your memory. Making these materials yourself is smart, because even by sorting through your notes and writing down your practice questions, you’re studying. But I’ll be the first to admit that when I’m in charge of making my own quiz, I tend to go a little easy on myself. (When I’m both the student and the teacher, I somehow always get an A+. Funny how that works.) It’s better to outsource the creation of these materials to an unbiased third party, and here’s another area where AI can be helpful.

You can ask ChatGPT to make flashcards and quizzes, but its interface isn’t really designed for that, so what it will spit back is an outline of what your flashcards should include based on the notes or resources you upload. From there, you can make the cards yourself, and get to studying (I recommend drilling flashcards using the Leitner system, which is better for helping you retain information over the long-term). You can also ask ChatGPT to quiz you, but you have to be specific with your instructions: Ask ChatGPT to quiz you one question at a time, and to not move on to a new question until you’ve answered the previous one correctly.

But again, here’s where I recommend NotebookLM. It has built-in flashcard and quiz features that are much more interactive and easy to use. You can click a button to generate a multiple-choice quiz or flashcard deck based on the materials you uploaded. The quizzes and cards it creates are clickable, like a quiz you would take in an online class, and are based only on what you upload.

Use AI to outline essays and suggest sources

You definitely don’t want ChatGPT or similar language models to “write” your whole essay—more than cheating yourself out of the learning experience, consider the fact that your teacher may run your assignment through a tool like ZeroGPT to get a report on how much of it was likely written by AI, which probably won’t do wonders for your grade.

Instead, you can use AI tools to help you plan and organize your essays. I’ve already assembled a list of the best AI essay-helping tools, but here’s the gist: You can ask ChatGPT to help you brainstorm a topic or create an essay outline. You can also ask for suggestions for sources you can then research and add into your work that you wouldn’t have considered otherwise.

Two notes of caution: ChatGPT is sometimes known to make up citations, inventing a convincing article title and attributing it to a well-known source. This is why you don’t want to rely on it to fully do the work for you, whether writing or research—just use it to source suggestions that you can hunt down and evaluate on your own. It won’t take long to realize a source you’ve been given just doesn’t exist.

Likewise, when ChatGPT gives you a link to a source, it adds a little code at the end of the URL that says “/?utm_source=chatgpt.com.” Even if you’re being as ethical as possible and clicking every link to read the material fully and consider its merits, it’s a very bad look to have a bibliography full of links that make it clear you used ChatGPT for your research—a reader might even assume you had the AI write everything for you. So before turning in work, I recommend searching your documents for mentions of “chatgpt,” and deleting that sneaky bit of code from any URL where you find it. Snip out everything from the question mark onward and link will still work, but won’t make you look like you’re doing something untoward.

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Diversifying your studying techniques is a great way to stay more engaged as you learn new information, but know this: The classic methods are classic for a reason. Take flashcards, for instance. You’ve certainly used them in the past, but you may not have been using them in a way that maximized their benefits.

Behold the Leitner system, which provides more structure to the tried-and-true practice of studying with flashcards and might be the jumpstart your studying needs. This memory-enhancing method is best suited for when you have a substantial amount of time to learn your material, so avoid it for cramming. Instead, get going with it as soon as a semester or new chapter starts.

What is the Leitner system for studying?

This system was devised by science writer Sebastian Leitner in 1972, which is why he gets the honor of having it named for him. (It’s from his book How to Learn to Learn, but while old copies retail for about $4, they’re only available in German, so just trust me on this one.)

For the first few decades of its use, it relied solely on on physical tools: flashcards and boxes. (You’ll also need a pen or pencil to make the flashcards.) Writing out your flashcards by hand is generally a good idea, as handwriting something helps stick it into your memory, but these days, you have other, more modern options for your Leitner sessions. We’ll get to those, too.

At its core, this is a version of spaced repetition, an evidence-based technique that helps learners absorb numerous pieces of information and store them in their memory. The system is best used when you have ample time but have to learn a lot of concepts, phrases, or ideas—so use it for an entire course or a really hefty chapter instead of a section or topic that only includes a few new things to learn. Now let’s get into what it is and how to execute it.

How to use the Leitner system

Let’s assume for a moment you’re doing this the old-school way—relying on index cards and a pen. The first thing you’re going to do is make your flashcards. Don’t worry about the other steps involving the boxes just yet. Make the flashcards as you normally would by including vocabulary words, new concepts, phrases, important dates, and anything else you need to know. It helps to first use a reading comprehension technique to go through the chapter or subject at hand, so try the SQ3R method, which has you identify questions you have about the material before you start reading, then has you write down the answers to those questions as you find them, plus anything else you learn. You base those questions on subheadings, graphs, tables, summaries, and other key parts of the chapter, but you can later base your flashcards on those same pieces of information, plus the answers you find. Be thorough and include concepts and words you already feel confident you know, even if that seems silly. It’s all part of the Leitner method and will come in handy.

Once you have a comprehensive flashcard deck, it’s time to use the method. You’ll need five boxes (or envelopes or even labeled binder clips, as long as it’s something that can hold big stacks of cards). You should label them on a timeline, ideally by how long you have to grasp the information. If you have a big midterm in two months, for instance, label Box 1 “daily,” Box 2 “every other day,” Box 3 “weekly,” Box 4 “biweekly,” and Box 5 “monthly.”

Now, do a round of flashcards. Every card you get right, move to Box 2. Every card you get wrong, keep in Box 1. You see where this is going, but I’ll spell it out: Box 1 is a daily review, so you do those flashcards every day, but if you start this activity on a Monday and your Box 2 is designated for every-other-day study, you won’t return to that one until Wednesday. If you answer cards from Box 2 correctly, they’ll go to Box 3, which in this example is your “weekly” box. If you answer any cards in Box 2 incorrectly, you move those back to Box 1, where you’ll study them every day until you get them right.

In short, when you answer a card right, it moves forward into a box that will have you reviewing it less frequently. When you answer a card wrong, it moves backward into a box that will have you reviewing it more frequently. Eventually, you’ll have cards all the way down in Box 5. Those will be the cards containing information you have effectively stored in your memory and really grasp, so you don’t need to go over them as often. Cards in the lower-numbered boxes contain information you’re not retaining as well and should go over more.

Modifications and things to keep in mind about the Leitner system

How you use the system will depend on how much time you have to study, as well as how much you have to learn. For instance, if you have just a few concepts you want to drill or you have only two weeks until a big test, you might use three boxes to designated daily, every-other-day, and weekly study. You also have some wiggle room when it comes to incorrect answers. The most faithful adherence to the method would have you moving any incorrect cards all the way back to Box 1 no matter what box it had previously made its way to, for instance, but you can make a judgement call on whether getting it wrong one time means you need to study it every day or whether you think it should only be demoted one box. Personally, I don’t see the harm in demoting it all the way to Box 1; if you got it wrong due to a momentary brain fart, it’ll make its way back up to the higher numbers easily enough in time; if you got it wrong because the information truly slipped out of your memory, it deserves to get some daily attention until you know it well enough to advance it.

You also need to be strategic when you’re studying on a day that involves multiple boxes. If you start on a Monday and use a daily, every-other-day, and weekly setup for your first three boxes, for instance, Friday is going to be pretty big for you. Start with whatever the highest box of the day is, then move backward. By doing this, you’ll get to study any you got wrong and moved backward twice, but won’t have to study any you got right and moved forward twice. Plus, it’ll be a little confidence boost to start on the harder ones and get some right, moving them to a box you won’t have to look at for a while.

The goal here is to really hammer the cards that contain information that isn’t sticking for you without bogging yourself down studying things you already know. As more cards move into the higher-numbered boxes, add information from new chapters so your deck is a comprehensive overview of everything you’ll need to know for a cumulative test or, ideally, long-term in the real-world application of the information.

Apps can make this easier

Yes, the classic approach to this involves handwriting cards and physically moving them around in boxes or envelopes and while that can be beneficial in its own way, the process is also laborious, time-consuming, and a little hard to manage. Where will you store all those flashcards? Are you going to bring them around to study on the go? The answer is probably no, which means you may find yourself skipping some days if it’s not feasible to haul around a stack of cards—and that defeats the purpose of the system entirely.

That’s where apps come in. Always be wary when using your phone to study, since it only takes a few taps of your finger to get distracted by non-educational messages and apps, but honestly, flashcard apps make all of this a lot easier if you can exercise the self-restraint necessary to use them.

Flashcards in any form are useful, as they force you to engage in active recall and pull the answers from your memory, so any flashcard app you download is better than nothing. Be advised, though, that not all of them follow the Leitner method. For Leitner-specific flashcard drills, I recommend Brainscape (my personal favorite), Cram, and Flashcard Lab. You can read my full reviews of them through those links, but generally, Brainscape is a sleek and well-produced app that comes with a ton of pre-made decks and simple options for making your own, Cram is much more basic but easy to use, and Flashcard Lab creates flashcards out of your own spreadsheets so the production part is almost too easy. All of them let you indicate whether you got a flashcard answer right or wrong, then move it around in your schedule so you see it more or less frequently.

Outsourcing the creation and sorting of the cards to tech leaves more time for studying and streamlines the whole process, making you more likely to stick to your Leitner practice.

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The onn. 10.1″ Android 14 tablet is on sale for $79.99 on StackSocial right now as part of an open-box deal. In this case, “open box” usually just means it’s leftover stock or a store return, so while the packaging might not look perfect, the device itself is tested, in new condition, and comes with a one-year warranty. For under $80, this tablet lands firmly in the everyday-use category (think streaming, browsing, and casual apps) without needing any subscriptions or hidden add-ons.

The tablet runs Android 14 right out of the box, which means you’re getting the latest interface and features without waiting for updates to trickle down. The screen is bright enough for watching shows, casual gaming, or scrolling, and the 2GHz octa-core processor with 3GB of RAM handles everyday multitasking reasonably well. Storage is limited to 32GB, but a microSD slot means you can add more space if needed. You won’t mistake the cameras (a 2MP front and 5MP rear) for those on a phone, but they’re serviceable for video calls or the occasional snapshot. Where the device pulls ahead of other low-cost tablets is its battery life: up to 17 hours (according to the manufacturer), which is enough to get through a full day of use without hugging a charger.

It also leans heavily toward being family-friendly. Google Kids Space and YouTube Kids are built in, giving parents some peace of mind with curated content, and Play Protect adds another layer of safety by scanning for malware in apps. Features like GPS and Google Assistant make it a handy travel companion too, even if it isn’t replacing a high-end tablet. The biggest trade-off is performance—this isn’t a powerhouse, and heavier apps will test its limits—but as a lightweight, affordable device for streaming, browsing, and keeping kids entertained, it does its job well.

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You can get a three-year license of Adobe Acrobat Classic (valued at $324) and a lifetime license of Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows (valued at $219.99) together on sale for $89.99 on StackSocial right now. The bundle is only available to U.S. customers, though. The Acrobat license works on both Mac and Windows, while the Office license is limited to a single Windows PC. And because these are digital codes, delivery is instant, and once redeemed, you can use the software offline without the monthly costs that come with subscriptions. If you’re someone who doesn’t want to deal with cloud tie-ins, recurring payments, or limited trials, the upfront structure of this deal is straightforward.

Adobe Acrobat Classic is the desktop-only edition, also labeled as Acrobat Pro 2024. It’s not tied to cloud services, which means everything from editing text and images to converting PDFs into Word, Excel, or PowerPoint happens locally. That’s especially useful if you work with sensitive files and don’t want them traveling online. You also get tools to password-protect or redact documents, along with a refreshed interface that makes features like creating forms or extracting specific pages quicker to find. There are limitations, including no AI Assistant add-on and no browser or mobile support, but if your workflow is mainly on a desktop, those missing pieces might not matter. Plus, the three-year license means you can lock in access without thinking about renewal until 2028.

On the Microsoft side, Office 2021 Professional offers the familiar full suite: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, and OneNote. A free version of Teams is included as well. This isn’t Microsoft 365, so you don’t get ongoing cloud-based perks or syncing, but the trade-off is that you own the license outright for one PC. For many, that’s enough, especially if you just need reliable offline access to the programs you already know. The applications themselves include some refinements, like quicker ribbon navigation and more customization for documents and presentations, but don’t expect radical changes from earlier Office versions. The real appeal lies in stability: you buy it once, install it, and it works without recurring fees. Put together, this bundle feels like a pragmatic option for anyone who spends most of their time drafting, editing, and managing documents without needing constant cloud integration.

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Not all Prime Days deals are open to just anybody. Since 2023, some of the best offers in Amazon’s annual sale are invite-only—meaning you have to sign up for them in advance of the sale going live, and hope you get chosen to receive the discount. These deals have become a common fixture for Amazon’s major sales, including this past summer’s Prime Day.

With Prime Big Deal Days 2025—the fall version of Prime Day—kicking off on Oct. 7, you can expect to see more invite-only deals popping up around the site. Here’s how to find and sign up for them, so you have a fighting chance at scoring some great offers.

Who is eligible for Prime Day invite-only deals?

Only a select number of products will be available via invite-only deals. You’ll be able to spot them by the “invite-only” banner visible on the product page. As Amazon explains, you must be a Prime Member to sign up for the invite-only deals, and when you sign up, you’re essentially requesting an invitation to purchase the deal, which will come by email—but only if you’re chosen to receive it.

Here are the steps to sign up:

1. Find an “Invite-Only Prime Deal” that you want to purchase. You can find these deals listed on the Deals page once Prime Day begins.

2. Navigate to the product detail page.

3. Select “Request Invite.” If you are not a Prime member, sign up for Prime to be able to request an invite.

4. You will receive an email notification confirming that you requested an invite. The confirmation will be sent to the email that is on your Amazon account. If you don’t have an email on your account, add one by navigating to Your Account > Login > Security.

How to know if you were approved for an invite-only deal

Keep in mind that just because you requested an invitation doesn’t mean you’ll receive one. If you are selected, you’ll receive both a push notification in the Amazon app and email notifying you during the sale. If you’re not selected, Amazon will also let you know you didn’t get one. You can only buy one of the products that you were invited for, but you can request as many different product invitations as you want. The invitation will last as long as Prime Day lasts (four days this year), or as long as there is stick remaining.

Invite-only deals are usually some of Prime Day’s most impressive offerings. Last year, for example, Amazon sold a 43-inch 4K Smart Fire TV for just $99, and you’ll likely see similar deals this year.

Here are more tips to shop smartly for Prime Day, using Alexa to remind you about deals to signing up for deal alerts so you receive notifications related to your Amazon searches and recently viewed items.

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If there’s one area where MacBooks lag behind Windows laptops, it’s gaming. But if there’s another area, it’s display technology. Yep, while Apple still stands behind its trademark LCD “retina” displays, Windows machines have been adopting OLED and touchscreens for years now. Luckily, according to industry experts, MacBook owners will soon be able to plan on having better screens, too.

The latest rumors come courtesy of TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, as well as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, both of whom have reliable track records reporting on Apple products. While this isn’t the first time Apple has been rumored to be updating its laptop displays, we’ve now got a timeline update. 

According to a post Kuo made to X on Sept. 17, the MacBook Pro will be the first MacBook to receive an OLED update, and as a bonus, the new screen will also support touch. The upgraded model is “expected to enter mass production by late 2026,” although as is par for the course with these leaks, the post didn’t point to any particular sources to back this up. However, if you read between the lines and look at Kuo’s past spot-on speculations, it’s likely an anonymous source from within Apple.

For a little bit of assurance, Gurman, who also frequently relies on such sources, was quick to agree with Kuo’s assertions in his weekly Power On newsletter this weekend, pointing to his original reporting on the topic from 2023. However, the reporter also added that the actual release date might be closer to early 2027, depending on how quickly Apple can get supply out. He also clarified that, technically, the revamp was planned for this year, but was moved back “due to OLED supply issues.”

As for the rest of Apple’s MacBook line, neither expert has updates on that end, although Gurman speculates that “if touch resonates on the MacBook Pro, I expect it to eventually come to other Macs as well.”

While the benefits behind a touchscreen laptop are fairly self explanatory, OLED is higher on my personal wishlist. The technology’s self-illuminating pixels will help with contrast, yes, but like on the iPhone, they should also aid with battery life. That’s because, while current MacBooks rely on a backlight that spans the entire display, parts of an OLED screen can remain off when not in use.

It’s notable that Kuo and Gurman’s proposed timeline also matches with the release of the iPad Pro just last year, which upgraded to an OLED screen for the first time. Given that iPadOS 26 also revamped the iPad user experience to be much more like using a MacBook, it’s likely Apple is currently planning for more parity between its product categories.

On that note, Kuo’s post also reminded readers that a potential lower-cost MacBook that uses an iPhone processor could be in the works for later this year, although specifics are still largely in the dark at this point. The analyst, however, did say this model would likely not include touch support, although that could change in the future.

As for other rumored Apple products, also still largely in the dark is a potential foldable iPhone, which Gurman says “will be the star of Apple’s 2026 product lineup.” As predicted by my colleague David Nield, the reporter’s sources are increasingly telling him that “users should imagine two titanium iPhone Airs side-by-side,” but pricing and release date specifics are still up to the imagination for now.