How to improve essay writing with AI feedback, without a rewrite

1Feedback versus rewriting

UCL's framework lists giving feedback, and reviewing academic tone, among the examples of assistive AI use, where the student should still be the author. It also quotes the university's rule on language review: a third party may check structure, fluency, presentation, grammar, spelling and punctuation, but it may be misconduct if substantive changes to content have been made by the reviewer or software, or at their recommendation.

The practical line: if the tool tells you a paragraph is unclear and you rewrite it, the work is yours. If the tool rewrites the paragraph and you paste it in, it is not.

2Prompts that ask for feedback

Paste a section you wrote and ask one question at a time. Questions that keep you in charge:

• "What is the main claim of this paragraph? Quote the sentence that states it."
• "Which sentence does not connect to my thesis: [thesis]?"
• "Where would a sceptical marker push back on this argument?"
• "List sentences that are hard to follow. Do not rewrite them."
• "Does my conclusion add anything my introduction did not say?"

Add "Do not rewrite" to every prompt. If a tool returns new text anyway, do not use it.

3What to do with the feedback

Treat AI feedback as one reader's opinion, and an unreliable one. Check each point against your sources and your own judgement. If it says a claim needs evidence, find the evidence yourself. If it says the structure is weak, go back to the thesis and topic sentences, as in essay structure. If it flags your thesis statement as vague, sharpen it in your own words.

4Feedback in practice

Here is how one round of feedback might look, using a paragraph invented for this page. The student pastes a paragraph and asks: "What is the main claim here? Do not rewrite anything."

The tool replies that the paragraph seems to make two claims: that school uniforms reduce bullying, and that they save families money. The student realises the second claim belongs in a different paragraph, moves it, and adds evidence for the first from a source they have read.

Notice what happened. The tool pointed at a problem. The student decided what the problem meant, chose the fix, found the evidence and wrote every word. That is feedback. If the student had asked the tool to "improve this paragraph" and pasted the result, the paragraph would no longer be theirs.

Keep a note of each round: the question you asked and what you changed. It takes a minute and makes any acknowledgement accurate.

5When to ask a person instead

A tutor, supervisor or writing centre knows the assignment, the marking criteria and your subject. Ask a person when the question is about what the assignment wants, whether an argument is strong enough for the level, or whether a use of help is allowed. The Russell Group's principles commit its universities to an environment where students can ask about specific uses openly without fear of penalisation.

Human help has rules too: see proofreading, editing or ghostwriting. And for the bigger picture of drafting with AI, drafting an essay with ChatGPT.

More on this in AI and writing.

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