The second session of the educational workshop “The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Research” on the topic “Applications of AI Prompt Engineering in Research with Examples”, specially designed for graduate students and postgraduates, was held by the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran, on Tuesday, May 5, 2025, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM in Ghadir Hall. The content of this session, as well as the first session, was presented by Pouya Mahmoudi, a Ph.D. student in Applied Linguistics at the University of Tehran.

In the first part, the concept of Prompt Engineering was explained, along with its applications, including reducing AI hallucination, designing research, determining participants and research settings, data collection tools and methods, data analysis techniques, and the importance of publication year and the number of references used. The examples presented demonstrated how carefully crafted input prompts can significantly enhance the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated results.

The second part of the workshop focused on identifying research topics and existing gaps in literature. In this section, intelligent methods were introduced to answer questions such as “What new research topics exist in this field?”, “What gaps are present in the existing literature?”, and “Which emerging issues require further investigation?”, enabling participants to purposefully identify potential avenues for future research.

Next, methods for identifying key articles and reputable journals, particularly Scopus-indexed journals and high-impact publications, were introduced, and a list of suggested references for further studies was provided. Participants were then taught how to critically analyze existing articles, identifying the strengths of completed research as well as shortcomings and areas for future investigation.

In the final part, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methodologies using AI were explained, and the criteria for selecting an appropriate method based on the research question and type of data were discussed. At the end of the session, ten guiding prompts related to the application of AI in research were presented to facilitate and accelerate the research processes of the participants in their future projects.