It is important to understand that you should not use AI to completely write any of your assignments. Your ideas, research, and conclusions should be your own. While AI can be a helpful tool, it's crucial to emphasize the importance of critical thinking and original thought. That said, AI can be extremely useful in helping you brainstorm and plan for your paper. 

Idea Generation and Brainstorming

• Topic exploration: AI can provide information and different perspectives on a given topic.

• Keyword expansion: By inputting a general topic, AI can suggest related keywords and concepts to broaden your ideas.

• Question generation: AI can help you formulate questions about your topic, which can serve as a starting point for research and analysis.

Research and Information Gathering

• Fact-checking: AI can verify the accuracy of information, saving students time and preventing the spread of misinformation.

• Source evaluation: While not foolproof, some AI tools can help assess the credibility of sources based on criteria like authorship, publication, and citation.

• Summarization: AI can condense lengthy articles or documents into manageable summaries, allowing students to focus on key points.

Organization and Outlining

• Structure suggestions: AI can propose different organizational structures for essays based on the topic and purpose.

• Thesis statement generation: By analyzing the main points of the essay, AI can help students develop strong thesis statements.

• Outline creation: AI can assist in creating basic outlines, providing a framework for students to expand upon.

Critical Thinking and Analysis

• Perspective generation: AI can offer different viewpoints on a topic, encouraging students to consider multiple perspectives.

• Argument analysis: By examining existing arguments, AI can help you identify strengths, weaknesses, and potential counterarguments.

• Pattern recognition: AI can help you identify patterns or trends in data, which can lead to insightful analysis.

Language and Style

• Word choice: AI can suggest alternative word choices to enhance clarity and precision.

• Sentence structure: AI can provide feedback on sentence structure and complexity.

• Style guidance: AI can help students develop an appropriate style for their target audience.

• Tone: AI can analyze your writing and suggest adjustments to word choice, sentence structure, and overall style to help you achieve your desired tone, whether it's formal, casual, persuasive, or anything in between.

As mentioned in the previous section, you should not use AI to write your paper or complete assignments. Remember also that while AI can provide valuable and timely feedback, you should always critically evaluate these suggestions and use your own best judgment. When possible, you should also get feedback from your instructor and/or your peers. Remember that AI has limitations, and therefore it is just a tool to help rather than the final word in revision. Here’s how AI can help you revise your paper:

Automated Feedback and Suggestions

• Grammar and Spelling: AI can quickly identify and correct grammatical errors, typos, and spelling mistakes.

• Clarity and Style: AI can provide suggestions to improve sentence structure, word choice, and overall clarity.

• Organization and Coherence: AI can help identify logical flow issues and suggest ways to improve the structure of the essay.

Personalized Feedback

• Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses: AI can analyze writing patterns to pinpoint areas where you excel and where you might need improvement.

• Tailored Recommendations: Based on the analysis, AI can offer specific advice to address individual writing challenges.

Idea Generation and Brainstorming

• Topic Exploration: AI can help you explore different angles and perspectives on a given topic.

• Evidence and Support: AI can suggest potential sources and evidence to strengthen arguments.

Enhancing Writing Skills

• Style Guides: AI can help you format your paper with the correct style guide (for your classes here, that is most likely APA formatting).

• Vocabulary Expansion: AI can suggest alternative word choices to improve vocabulary and prevent repetition.

Examples of Specific AI Writing Tools

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• Grammar checkers: Grammarly, ProWritingAid

• Style checkers: Hemingway Editor, Readable

• Feedback platforms: Turnitin Feedback Studio

• AI writing assistants: Jasper.ai, Copy.ai

Oftentimes, when we use AI such as GPTs or Google Gemini, the text produced does not sound like something you would have written. These tools scour the internet to find other people’s words to answer your questions. Therefore, if you use AI to help you generate thoughts, be sure to rewrite those raw ideas into something in your own voice and how you would say it in your own words. Remember, AI is only a tool, and it can’t replace the unique person and perspective that you provide! 

There are many many great resources that you can use to generate citations, both with AI and with web-based generators. As we frequently say with these tools, they are a great place to start! You can easily put the information from a book or article into citation generators like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Grammarly, or EasyBib. However, always make sure to check and verify that the citation is correct.