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IPEd

By Editors South Australia

Donna McGeorge is a productivity mastermind. She has built her career helping people reclaim time through effective time management, efficiency and productivity. Her latest book, The ChatGPT Revolution, explores how you can harness the power of this cutting-edge technology to free up time in your life, minimise repetitive tasks or boost your creativity.

We know there has been some controversy among editors about the benefits (or pitfalls) of using ChatGPT. Anyone who attended the 11th IPEd Editors Conference in May would have heard ChatGPT mentioned multiple times in both positive and negative terms. Donna recently spoke at the Editors SA annual branch meeting about how ChatGPT can be used to support editors in their work (not steal their jobs), and we sat down with her for a rapid-fire interview.  

Chat GPT: Embrace or avoid? 

Definitely embrace. Current rule of thumb is, you won’t lose your job to AI, but you might lose your job to someone else who embraces AI.

What are the three ways ChatGPT can help editors in their work? 

  1. First-round editing: Ask it to remove typos, double space marks and some of the other tedious aspects of your role.  
  2. Rephrasing or paraphrasing: Copy the content in and ask it to do the work.  
  3. Second-round editing: Provide some rules on style, composition, sentence length etc. and ask it to reword content.

Will ChatGPT take over our jobs? 

No.

What’s your advice for editing professionals wanting to improve their productivity?  

There are so many ways you can use it in your personal and professional life. Any time you are stuck, ask ChatGPT for advice. Think of it as an eager intern with a hangover. It’s eager to please and provide you with amazing stuff, but you need to check its work.

Donna McGeorge’s latest book, The ChatGPT Revolution: How to Simplify Your Work and Life Admin With AI, is out now. Find it at donnamcgeorge.com

Donna’s presentation, the ChatGPT revolution, is available to purchase for a limited time only.