AI writing software like ChatGPT are powerful tools. But as tools, we need to wield them effectively and ethically. This assignment walks you through some techniques and evaluations so that students and other writers can become more fluent in AI-assisted writing.

Instructions: Follow the steps below. You’ll create a single document showing each step and detailing the responses. Think of it as a technology report, with a combination of documentation (showing what was done) and analysis (detailing your insights about the process). It will be ~3-5 pages. This assignment example uses ChatGPT, but you can use any AI software.

 Step 1: Prompt completion: The first step is to write a prompt, or writing instruction, for ChatGPT. For this example, I’m going ask ChatGPT to help me write a response to the first question of the “Summary of Theories and Techniques of Change” assignment. That question is about problem definition and it says: “In this section, describe the problem(s) of plastic pollution. What is the nature of the problem, its scale, the main crux of the issue? How is it related to other problems, if at all? Is it just a symptom of another problem, or is it the manifestation of many other problems brought together?  I expect you to correctly use the concept of wicked problems for this section. Note there is an optional reading by Rittle and Weber if you’re having issues with the concept or really love it” (Liboiron, 2024). If you are an instructor, I recommend a prompt about a major question in your course/field, one for which there is no clear or right or wrong answer but for which there are at least some facts.

Prompt ChatGPT to write five paragraphs that answer this question or part of this question.

The first set of answers will likely be more general than you want, and you will have to nudge the AI to provide an answer more to your liking. For instance, you can ask it to “rewrite but with more emphasis on microplastic sizes and their sources.” Again, it may be too general or off-topic. You can keep asking the AI writer to change its answer by asking it to remove some concepts, adding more specific comments, add citations or more scientific knowledge, etc.

Write down each prompt and why you needed to change the prompt.

If your AI hasn’t given the work a title, the last step is to make sure the piece has a title. Once you are happy that ChatGPT has answered the question, go to step 2.

Step 2: Evaluation: Copy and paste the final five paragraphs into your report, and title it “Final AI Response.” Then, highlight the text using the following colour code:

• Red: highlight anything that is incorrect. You may have to look some things up to see what is correct and incorrect.
• Light green: highlight which areas have good ideas that you’ll use, either because they are correct and you know it or you think they are good ideas, are basically correct, and you’re going to do more research on them
• Dark green: highlight any phrases, sentences, or paragraphs you would use as-is. That is, what would you copy into your own work?
• Yellow highlight: highlight areas that are fine but not good enough for your assignment (still too vague, stated oddly, not specific enough, no evidence or not a strong argument)

Write a few paragraphs about trends you noticed when you were evaluating the AI essay. What sort of things did it get wrong? What sort of things were most useable and why? Why did you highlight some things yellow and some things light green–what were your criteria? Did you notice any other patterns that are not listed here? Should we add a colour to the next version of the assignment for something you see as important to evaluation? Why?

Step 3: Quoting, attributing, and citing: In academic writing, we often write collaboratively and there are norms around this practice. ChatGPT has been your collaborator for this, like when a professor sends a student Research Assistant to do some research. In the above step, you evaluated that work, and now you’re going to show how you incorporate those ideas into your work.

We’ll continue to use the first question of the Summary assignment, but you can do this assignment for any section of any assignment in the course.
3a. Create an outline of what you want to talk about for the Problem Definition question in the Summary assignment. Make sure you address all the points in the assignment instructions.
3b. Create a note in the outline in every place you used or are going to use someone else’s knowledge, whether it’s a direct quote (put it in the outline in ” ” and with the in-line citation), a reference to where an idea came from (put the in-line citation), and in the bibliography. You may also want to add co-authors or an acknowledgment section. Make sure every place and every method of how you’ll use ChatGPT is included. I asked you to ensure you had a title for the ChatGPT essay so that you can cite it properly. Here are instructions for citing AI. Put this version of the outline in your report.
3c. Flesh out your outline until it becomes the full answer to the question in the assignment. Put this in your report.
3b. Finally, write a report about how you found using ChatCPT as a collaborator in your AI Writing Assignment report. What did you notice about incorporating the knowledge and writing ChatGPT did for you? Was it the same as attributing other sources of knowledge within the course like authors of papers, outside research, or your peers? If it was the same, why do you think that is? If it was different, why? How do you think you’ll use ChatGPT in the future, if at all?

Be sure to include a Works Cited section in your report!

Example of an assignment

References

McAdoo, Timothy. (2023). How to cite ChatGPT. https://apastyle.apa.org. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt.

Liboiron, Max. (2024). “Summary of theories and techniques of change (required),” Assignment, BIOL/SOCI277MMA24, Mary Baldwin University.