The AI Writing Report flags how much submission language might have been generated by AI.
AI Writing Report Limitations
- Only visible to instructors
- Submission needs to be between 300 and 30,000 words of English prose.
- Unable to accurately flag short (non prose) writings like brainstorming, outlines, poems, forms, etc
- Only assignments can be checked for AI Writing
- Fallable. Has a 4% false positive rate (according to Turnitin)
- Can flag some who learned English primarily through writing/reading (not speaking) as AI
- Can flag some with neurodivergence as AI
- Does not give details about how flags are generated
- Does not distinguish between approved AI like Grammarly and unapproved AI like ChatGPT
When to be concerned about an AI Writing Report
- Student submissions generate high AI Writing Scores (50-100%)
- Student language is consistently highly polished and overly formal
- Student language has noticeably or dramatically changed
- Student submissions vaguely address a detailed or nuanced prompt, especially about specific articles, books, etc that the AI clearly has not “read”; prompts about previous activities, conversations, and experiences in the course.
The AI Writing Report should be the basis of a conversation with a student.
What not to do:
- Assume malicious intent
- Outright accuse the student
- Disregard the student’s perspective
- Generalize or stereotype
- Overlook learning opportunities
- Send them to tutoring without specific goals/instructions for the tutor
What to do:
Use some of the following example phrases to talk with a student:
- “Tell me about your thought process when putting this paper/project/assignment together.”
- “How did you organize your ideas?”
- “How did you arrive at this particular argument?”
- “How did you search for your sources? What led you to choose those particular sources?”
- “What was the most challenging part of this assignment for you?”
- “Your last assignment/discussion did not have the same writing style/voice/vocabulary as previous assignments. For example… I am curious about this change.”
- “Talk to me about two takeaways you have learned from this paper/project/assignment”
- "Can you show me some of your earlier drafts or notes for this paper?"
- "Some students use AI tools to brainstorm or proofread — did you use anything like that here?"
- "Do you use Grammarly when writing?"
How to Have Essential Conversations with Students
