We get a lot of questions from students about AI – when to use it, when not to use it, and how to use it to strengthen writing skills.

We’re here to help you answer those questions.

First, writing is important to learning. Articulating our thoughts and ideas in writing helps us consolidate our understanding of important concepts, discover gaps in our knowledge, and build our thinking skills. In other words, the process of writing – figuring out what to say, how to organize ideas, and how to express thoughts clearly - builds and strengthens the brain. 

We can use AI tools to enhance learning and build our writing skills. AI tools can answer all kinds of questions, explain ideas and concepts, and generate useful examples. They can be great conversation partners; they are always ready to talk to us about our ideas and help us solve problems. They are never tired or grumpy. And they can give us useful feedback on our writing.

This means that the mission of the Writing Center is 

(i) to teach students how to write well

(ii) to teach students how to use AI tools to build and strengthen their writing and critical thinking skills. 

AI tools can write really well without any grammar errors or awkward language. So, why shouldn’t I just give CoPilot or ChatGPT my ideas and let it write them up for me? They’re my ideas, after all.

Writing can feel difficult, especially when you are struggling to try to come up with the right words to express your thoughts or to figure out how to organize information so that it flows logically to support a point or argument. But the struggle and effort writing requires is part of the process of building your brain and your thinking skills. Outsourcing writing to an AI tool short-circuits the learning process. It’s like trying to build muscle strength by watching YouTube videos of weightlifters in a gym.

In addition, we need good writing skills to use AI tools effectively. We need to be able to 

  • write clear and accurate questions – and ask them in a lot of different ways – to get good answers 
  • understand what good writing looks like (it’s about more than just good grammar) to be able to evaluate and modify writing AI tools produce. 
  • write good prompts to get good output 
  • use research skills to fact-check the information we get from AI

Employers want people who can use AI to generate writing. Shouldn’t I learn how to do this at college?

Yes, absolutely. Many of your professors will include AI tools in their courses and some will ask you to use AI tools to generate various forms of writing (emails, marketing materials, summaries of information). Here at the Writing Center, we’re happy to help show you how to evaluate and revise AI-generating writing when you are asked to do this in an assignment. Our primary focus, however, is to show you how to use AI tools to improve your own writing skills, not to produce writing for you.