Generative AI and Writing a Paper: Home

Can Generative AI become your co-author at Saint Leo?

Who is the author? You or your AI tool? 

Your prompts to an AI interface affect the content produced. Does that make you the author? In most cases, probably not. You may have provided the prompt(s), but the ideas created are not your own; they are the ideas gleaned from other sources. Text or images generated by AI tools technically do not have what we would usually consider to be an author, even if the AI interface claims the information has authors - be aware that the AI interface may (and frequently do) create fake citations

Could the information created be biased?
Generative AI tools have been coded and then "trained" based on materials freely found on the internet (scraped). However, information is not bias free; it will inherit the original authors' perspectives, created by humans with human biases.  Unlike humans, AI tools cannot reliably distinguish between biased material and unbiased material when using information to construct their responses based on the prompts you provide.

Who is the intended audience?

Generative AI tools can be used to generate content for any audience based on the prompt(s) used.

What is the intended purpose of the content you are creating?  For academic purposes, some possibilities may include a persuasive essay, a help or how to paper, or an analysis of a poem, article, book, or other materials.   

Generative AI tools can create general informative documents and even some very convincing "writing". AI can create images (based on other images created and fed into the AI tool).  It is your responsibility to actually be the author.

It is best to use library resources instead of internet based resources.

How can you do that?

1.  Review the assignment
   1. Ask for help from your professor if you are unsure of some details.
2. Start with your idea(s) based on that assignment
   1. Ask for clarification from your professor
   2. Ask for help from the library to generate key words
   3. Brainstorm with a librarian, an AI interface, a peer tutor or a classmate.
3. Search for articles using the key words (see help videos)
   1. Of course you could skip to this step without locating great resources, but..... you'll get better results if you do not skip these steps
4. "Feed" the articles into the AI tool (see directions).
5. Ask it for a summary of the articles, based on the articles you have "fed" it
   1. Of course you could skip to this step but..... it could help you understand the topic in more depth
   2. You could also take some notes as you read through the article, and the summary.
   3. Clarify your understanding by asking the AI questions about the reading(s)
   4. Use the AI interface as a tutor or teacher as appropriate
6. Review the summaries. 
   1. Read the article yourself, use a highlighter (if you printed the article) and/or take notes
   2. Edit the summary based on your own reading to be more focused (annotated bibliography).
   3. Are there missing subtopics you want to include?
      1. Add more articles to the mix as needed. Get additional summaries if you want.
7. Use your own creativity, insight and thoughts
8. KEEP IN MIND
   1. The use of an AI writing tool is very tempting. It can be very useful, saving you a lot of time. But how do you know what you do not know?
   2. If you use any generative AI tool, or human editor/author, or decide to borrow chunks of a paper from a classmate, a reading, or a website, or other material assistance which you may have used to create and use ideas which are not your own, it must be disclosed.
      1. If you use an AI tool, make sure it is allowed in that course (and cite it properly!)
      2. If you borrow "chunks" of information from anywhere, you must cite where the information or idea(s) came from.
   3. Use of any tool or assistive technology for completion of coursework must be pre-authorized by your faculty member.
   4. The course syllabus will list what is considered acceptable in that class, so check there before embarking on any use of assistive writing tools such as AI. 
   5. If you choose to use an AI tool for any part of your paper or project, be sure you are transparent about your use of it with your professors.
   6. If you do not disclose the use o f an AI tool and you are charged with plagiarism or academic dishonesty, disclosing the use of the tool afterwards isn't a good idea.