While UVU policy on the ethical use of AI is evolving, individual instructors are empowered to make decisions about what tools to allow in their courses. Please be aware that there is a chance you could be accused of plagiarism when using AI for coursework, especially if you submit work entirely written by a chatbot or generative text AI tool. Always read your syllabus and talk to your instructor if you are unsure. Although this guide offers information on citing AI tools, keep in mind that some instructors don't permit the use of these tools in certain ways even when cited.
While it might be tempting to use AI tools to generate content for your assignments, it is not just plagiarism accusations that should inspire you to reconsider. Below are some of the benefits you gain from writing assignments. If you need support around the writing requirements in your courses, the UVU Writing Center is here to help.
To test or examine your opinions or questions about a subject, you need to analyze a problem or text and use your critical thinking skills to determine the argument you want to make to support your thesis. Critical thinking and analysis skills aren’t just necessary in school — they’re skills you’ll apply throughout your career and your life.
Writing your own essays will train you in how to conduct research, including where to find sources, how to determine if they’re credible, and their relevance in supporting or refuting your argument. Knowing how to do research is another key skill required throughout a wide variety of professional fields.
Writing an essay involves communicating an idea clearly to your audience, structuring an argument that a reader can follow, and making a conclusion that challenges them to think differently about a subject. Effective and clear communication is necessary in every industry. AI tools are not always great writers; they tend to be pretty bland. It's up to you to develop your ability to communicate through writing.
Engaging with a topic, conducting your own research, and developing original arguments allows you to really learn about a subject you may not have encountered before. A simple essay assignment around a work of literature, historical period, or scientific study will spark a passion that can lead you to a new major or career.
As you are discovering, generative AI models like ChatGPT just aren’t as advanced or intelligent as they may believe. While AI may be a poor option for writing your essay, it can be a great tool to support your work.
Have ChatGPT help you come up with ideas for essays using specific prompts, such as, “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write on topics related to WWII,” or “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write comparing characters in twentieth-century novels.” See Using AI for Research for more help with using AI to create topics.
If you get writer's block at any point in the process, ChatGPT might be one way of working through it.
You can also use ChatGPT to help you create an outline for an essay. Ask it, “Can you create an outline for a five paragraph essay based on the following topic” and it will create an outline with an introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion, and a suggested thesis statement. Then, you can expand upon the outline with your own research and original thought.
Titles should draw a reader into your essay, yet they’re often hard to get right. Have ChatGPT help you by prompting it with, “Can you suggest five titles that would be good for a college essay about [topic]?”
Using a thesaurus isn't particularly frowned on and using ChatGPT or an AI tool to come up with the right word or phrase shouldn’t be either. You can use the bot to look for variations on a particular word or get more specific and ask for alternatives that are more or less formal, shorter, longer, etc.
Where ChatGPT really comes in handy is when you're reaching for a word and you're not even sure it exists: ask about "a word that means a sense of melancholy but in particular one that comes and goes and doesn't seem to have a single cause" and you'll get back "ennui" as a suggestion (or at least we did).
If you have characters talking, you might even ask about words or phrases that would typically be said by someone from a particular region, of a particular age, or with particular character traits.
Pro Tip: Double-check all suggestions from AI to make sure the suggested word really means what the AI tool thinks it means.
With a bit of cutting and pasting, you can quickly get ChatGPT to review your writing as well. It will attempt to tell you if there's anything that doesn't make sense if your sentences are too long, or if your prose is too lengthy. Note that sometimes AI tools flag errors that don't exist in your writing or things that aren't grammatically incorrect. Note: If the authors are not sufficiently skilled enough to notice when the generated output does not match their intended ideas, using such tools without further checking could yield worse results than simpler but more accurate English.
If you use AI tools to write any of the content you use in your assignments, you must cite it! See AI Tools & Citations for help with this.
When generative models are used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content, they are similar to tools like Grammarly, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools, which have all been perfectly acceptable for years.
Content from ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance, 5 Ways ChatGPT Can Improve, Not Replace, Your Writing, and Should I Use ChatGPT to Write My Essays?