ok genuine question not trying to start anything. if i ask chatgpt to outline a topic, then i go and rewrite every sentence in my own words and add my own analysis, is that ‘ai assisted’ or ‘ai generated’. my uni policy literally just says ‘do not use ai to write assignments’. it doesnt say anything about brainstorming, outlining, paraphrasing. nobody i ask gives me the same answer. need to know before i submit tuesday
The clearest line most institutions are landing on: the AI cannot be the source of the ideas or the argument. Using it for brainstorming, structure suggestions, or as a more efficient thesaurus is generally treated like a tutor or a library reference. Using it to generate the analysis you then lightly reword is treated as ghostwriting, which is misconduct. The litmus test is whether you could defend each sentence in an oral exam without the AI’s framing in front of you. If yes, you wrote it. If no, you outsourced it.
What Marc said. also a practical note: cite it. if your school doesnt have an AI use citation format yet just add a methods note at the end saying you used X for outline brainstorming. transparency is your friend if something gets flagged later.
Thats helpful. so brainstorming = ok, analysis = not ok. the line is the actual argument. ok i think im fine then, my analysis is mine, i used it to get unstuck on structure
Id push back gently on the ‘lightly reword’ thing tho. if you find yourself paraphrasing whole paragraphs you’ve essentially copied the argument shape. it doesnt help that the surface words are different. the test is: could you delete the AI output entirely and rebuild the section from your notes? if yes its assistance. if no its substitution.