3 Rules for Academic Writing with AI

Originally published: January 11, 2025
Last updated: January 11, 2025

Concerns about “AI Plagiarism” are overblown and come from a place of arrogance and fear.

Ironically, schools and universities, which should be about learning, have instead become all about task completion.

Plagiarism, cheating, and shortcuts will always be a concern where that is the focus.

If the goal is task completion, constant vigilance is required, because everyone will want to complete that as soon and as quickly as possible.

If, however, the goal is to actually learn something, our assignments must spark curiosity¹ rather than a task list.

Everyone knows that learning can be hard and requires thinking and processing.

This will focus solely on the writing aspect from a student perspective. I’ll include something else later about teaching in an age of AI.

Have Integrity

Writing can take as much time as you will give it. ~~Mark Twain~~ ~~John Locke~~ Blaise Pascal is alleged to have concluded a long letter with this phrase:

I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn’t have time. ²

The writing process is deep and unique for each person, and it takes time. When you need to write something, on deadline especially, it just takes time to write well.

AI can speed that process up, but there are many other things that speed that process up as well.

Nobody wants another 500 words on how you wrote what you wrote. And you don’t need to cite the many different graphic organizers you may use to organize your thoughts beforehand.

But, if you’re using ideas and thoughts that are not your own, it is an act of integrity to cite your sources and share what came from whom in your writing.

My philosophy on students writing with AI: If you’re going to use AI to write the whole thing, please let me know, and I’ll use AI to grade it all. That way, nether of us waste time on it.

I’ve also said that if you’re using AI to just get it done and check a box, please let me know so I don’t waste any time reading and giving feedback. And you can have the A grade (since grades are made up anyway).

If you only take this step, you needn’t worry about anything going forward.

Use AI To Improve Your Thoughts, Not Create Them

In my first year of college, I did especially poorly on a writing assignment in one of my classes. My professor suggested I go to the writing lab.

So I did.

The writing tutor, a junior English major, gave me plenty of feedback and essentially rewrote my paper in an academic tone, but didn’t change any of my ideas.

It was in the era of track changes on Microsoft Word, and I clicked, “accept change” about 200 times and then turned it in.

I didn’t do any other work. My grade was substantially better.

My professor appeared pleased, and I decided that was good enough.

Here’s the thing, the tutor improved what I had already written. He didn’t make new arguments for me, nor did he make other major changes. But it showed me something that I didn’t understand: how to write for that particular professor³

When it comes to using AI in learning environments, don’t use the AI to do your work for you.

Let me share a brief story here.

My oldest daughter is 18 and is going to start sending out Christmas cards. Well, she also has Down syndrome, which limits her ability to communicate.

But anyone who knows her and would want a Christmas card, knows that she has a big personality and deep beliefs and dreams.

So, she typed up a Christmas card. And this is what she wrote:

May 1 I turn 18 Fun run my family and friends they go to my fun run they love me - donate a money for the Shiners hospital $3000 dollars Gradation I am really Gradation at Ferris high school Singles ward - my calling greeter, go go to family home evening to institute Speaking at Gonzaga - I was a guest speaker at Gonzaga University talking about my experience in school. Thanks Mrs Jacobson for inviting me. It was so fun. Next time I want a limo! I want to go there everyone cheer my name Katya Katya then tee my fans they love me so much

Getting that, you’d be hard pressed to really understand, but that’s how she talks and that’s what you get.

So I sat down with her and ChatGPT and worked through what she really wanted to say. And this is the result:

Dear Family and Friends, I graduated from Ferris High School this year! I am so proud I turned 18 this May! I am so happy. My friends and family came to my fun run. We raised $3,000 for Shriners Hospital! That makes me proud This year, I want to raise $5,000 for Shriners Hospital. I’m asking all of you to help me reach my goal! At church, I have my calling as a greeter. I love saying hello to everyone. I also go to family home evening and institute classes I have an awesome job! I work at Ace Hardware for three days every week. I love my internship. I got to speak at Gonzaga University! My teacher, Mrs. Jacobson, invited me to talk about my school experiences. Everyone cheered my name - “Katya! Katya!” It was amazing. Next time, I want to ride in a limo! Love, Katya

You’ll notice, no doubt that a couple things were added to what she originally wrote. Through the process of chatting with ChatGPT, we realized she missed a couple things that were important to the letter, so we prompted ChatGPT to add those things.

My friend and history teacher Aaron Makelky says, “What is amazing about ChatGPT and tools like it is that a teacher or professor should never have to read poor writing again.”⁴

Remember, You Are the Author

I got some great advice many years ago, from my college English professor Debbie Bright.

She said, “Don’t forget Jethro, you are the author, and all the editors in the world (or AI tools that may exist) can’t know what your real intent is in writing something, so you need to be OK with rejecting their suggestions if they are wrong.”

I remember this advice because previous to this, all my interactions in writing were with the teachers and professors who were smarter than me and always telling me what I was doing wrong.

She taught me that my ideas mattered—and that editors, even the best, don’t get the final say.⁵

I’ve still had plenty of bad ideas since then, but I’ve always remembered that I am the ultimate decider of what has meaning and what I want to say.

The AI can’t be me. It can’t be you.

Only you can be you.

So, sure, use what ever tools you can to make you the best version of yourself, but don’t try to let someone or something else be you, because it can’t.

I did ask AI for feedback on this writing, and this “spark curiosity phrase is the first one suggesting I agreed with. You can see the whole chat thread here. Perhaps my favorite piece of feedback was that I should have more empathy towards AI skeptics, but I don’t agree with that. I am intentionally harsh toward skeptics because I believe the skeptics are skeptical for the wrong reasons—nuance that AI probably can’t pick up on. ↩
AI seems to suffer the same malady. It cannot be succinct ever, it seems. ↩
This is another problem that warrants more focus than we have time for here, but when the audience is solely the professor, there’s little value in creating anything. It’s partly why I’m publishing everything (including my notes) for my doctoral program ↩
I’m pretty sure he said that on this OSPI Graduation Equity Webinar, but it may have been in the presenter debrief afterward. ↩
This advice from the AI better aligns with what I wanted to say, but didn’t quite have the words for. Honestly, I wouldn’t have used an em dash there, but I’m leaving it to see how it feels. Look at the transcript of the interaction to see what the original line was. ↩

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