I'm sitting here at 2 AM and I feel like an absolute idiot. I have this 15-page research paper for my European History course due in exactly 18 days and I'm literally staring at a pile of 30 different PDFs I downloaded from the library database. I tried reading the first one and I didnt even get past the abstract before my brain just shut off. Everyone in my dorm is talking about using AI tools to speed things up but I honestly have no idea what that even means. I thought AI was just ChatGPT? But my professor was super clear that if he sees a paper written by a bot he's gonna fail us instantly and I cant afford to retake this class because money is tight as it is.

So my logic was that maybe there are tools that just help you organize things or find better sources? I tried googling AI for students but I got all these ads for things that look like they're for professional scientists or something and I'm just a sophomore who's confused. I saw something called Elicit? Or maybe Consensus? I dont know if those are even for history students or just for like, biology and stuff. I need something that can maybe summarize these long boring papers so I know if I should actually read them or not. I'm also really broke right now, like I have maybe $20 to my name for the rest of the month here in New York because the subway and food are so expensive, so if these tools cost a bunch of money then I'm probably just stuck doing it the old fashioned way.

Sorry if this is a really basic question but I'm just so frustrated and behind. Are there actually good tools for this year that wont get me in trouble for cheating? I just need help finding the right info and understanding it better without feeling like I'm drowning in words...