AI for Writing
In educational contexts, generative AI is reshaping the practice of writing by transforming how students generate ideas, compose texts and engage with the writing process.
As you start to write, make sure you understand the assignment and the acceptable AI use policy. If AI is allowed by your professor, determine which specific writing stages will benefit most from AI assistance.
Suggestions
- Whether you are doing personal, professional or academic writing, follow the appropriate rules for using AI.
- Develop prompts and use AI at discrete stages of the writing process:
- Brainstorming: Use AI to explore ideas, develop arguments and propose new approaches.
- Drafting: Use AI to suggest many ways you might organize your ideas for different audiences and purposes for writing.
- Revising: Use AI to review sentences or paragraphs if you’re struggling to convey your ideas, or to review your first draft and make suggestions for tone, clarity and vocabulary.
- Editing: Use AI to check spelling, punctuation and grammar, and ensure your writing follows the required citation style.
- Use multiple AI platforms, compare outputs and combine the best ideas.
Cautions
- Always remain the primary author; don’t ask the AI to produce a complete first draft that you submit as your own work.
- Remember that writing is a form of critical thinking, an essential part of learning that you must engage in yourself; use AI to augment, not replace, your own thinking and writing.
- Keep track of how you use AI and cite its use following guidelines specified for your writing project.
- Always critically evaluate AI outputs and make sure the language sounds natural, engaging and authentic.
- Don’t become overreliant on AI, using it as a writing crutch; work to develop your own writing voice, style and personality.
Think of the writing process as a human-AI loop. You remain in charge of the writing but use AI at certain stages of the process, working back and forth to create the final paper.
YOU
Step 1 - Gather information and create an outline. Compose a detailed prompt asking AI to brainstorm three alternate approaches aligned with your outline. Submit the prompt to multiple AIs.
AI
Step 2 - Based on the writer’s prompt generate three alternate approaches aligned with the outline.
YOU
Step 3 - Use what you know and combine with the best alternate approaches from AI to write your own first draft. Ask multiple AI platforms for a detailed critique of your draft and suggestions for improvement.
AI
Step 4 - Generate a detailed critique of the writer’s first draft, suggest missing concepts and correct factual errors or lapses in logic.
YOU
Step 5 - Critique and challenge the AI suggestions. Verify all information. Revise sections, ask for more feedback as necessary and ask for corrections in spelling, punctuation and grammar.
AI
Step 6 - Generate suggestions for correcting spelling, punctuation, grammar and citations.
YOU
Step 7 - Ensure that the final paper is in your voice, represents your own ideas and meets the requirements of the assignment. Ensure that you have clearly attributed the use of AI in all phases of the paper’s development.
Adapted from the Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence (2025), developed by Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center in partnership with American Association of Colleges and Universities. Used with permission under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.
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