Statement on AI Use for Writing

Why Use AI?

AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and ProWritingAid can support your writing by offering ideas, explanations, and constructive guidance. These tools do not replace your voice, they help you write with greater clarity and confidence. Think of AI as a writing partner that helps you work through challenges during the writing process.

How AI Can Help By:

  • Brainstorming ideas and generating writing prompts
  • Explaining grammar rules and writing conventions
  • Outlining essays, stories, or memoirs
  • Simplifying complex sentences or restructuring awkward phrasing
  • Offering feedback on drafts
  • Providing examples when you feel stuck
  • Checking spelling and clarity

Benefits for Writers

  • Research help: Can search through millions of sources.
  • Reduces frustration and writer’s block
  • Helps non-native English speakers
  • Speeds up early drafting

Critical Limitation: AI Fabricates Information

AI tools often generate false information. They invent quotations, create nonexistent sources, fabricate statistics, and present incorrect facts as if they were true. This occurs because AI produces text based on patterns rather than observed reality. Writers must always verify AI facts, dates, quotations, and research. This limitation matters less for brainstorming and drafting, but when you have AI research a topic be careful with the results.

AI Becomes Weary

On lengthy projects such as a biography or novel, AI may become unreliable. Writers report that AI can abruptly become perfectly nonsensible. If you ask, the AI will acknowledge errors, but it will continue to make them. You can sometimes eliminate the problem by deleting a project and creating a new new one using the same AI, but sometimes you have to cancel your subscription and use a different AI. You can return to the original AI after a relatively short period of a week or two. Things are changing rapidly, however, and perhaps this problem will disappear soon.

AI Becomes Testy

As you proceed through a project, your prompts may imply that text created by the AI was created by you. Avoid pointed questions and peculiar responses by not claiming or implying that AI work was done by you.

Protecting Your Privacy

Text you enter into AI tools may be stored, reviewed by company employees, or used to train future AI systems. Avoid sharing sensitive personal information such as your full name combined with your address, financial details, medical information, or private family matters you would not want strangers to read. When writing personal essays or memoirs, consider changing names and identifying details before sharing drafts with AI. Each platform’s privacy practices differ, so review their terms if you have concerns.

Tips for Responsible Use

  • Start with your own ideas before turning to AI
  • Keep your voice in the piece—read AI text aloud and edit to personalize
  • Verify any facts, dates, or quotations AI provides
  • Use AI as a helper, not a replacement for your thinking
  • Be transparent when AI contributes to your work

Suggestions for Using AI in Writing

1. Starting a Piece

  • “Give me writing prompts about ___.”
  • “Help me brainstorm ideas for a personal story about the time that  ___.”
  • “Help me choose between these two topics to include as examples in my essay.”

2. Planning & Outlining

  • “Create an outline for a short essay about ___.”
  • “Give me three unique structures I could use for this story.”

3. Drafting

  • “Write a rough example paragraph. I will rewrite it in my voice.”
  • “Give me three introductions.”
  • “Help me show rather than tell in this sentence.”

4. Revising

  • “Make this paragraph clearer and more concise.”
  • “What suggestions do you have to strengthen my ending?”
  • “Can you point out places where the flow is confusing?”

5. Learning Writing Skills

  • “Explain what a thesis statement is with an example.”
  • “Explain the difference between passive and active voice.”
  • “Give me beginner-friendly tips for writing dialogue.”

6. Building Confidence

  • “Help me phrase this more smoothly.”
  • “Suggest an encouraging writing tip to help me keep going.”

7. To keep your writing authentically yours:

  • Read aloud and rewrite AI suggestions rather than accepting them unchanged
  • Combine AI’s ideas with your experiences
  • Ask AI for guidance—not for perfection

Remember: You are the author.