As with most things in life, especially technology, AI writing tools are a bit of a double-edged sword. Experts from essaypro promo code often receive texts from new clients asking, “Why can’t I just use ChatGPT to write my college essay instead of hiring a human writer?” The short answer would be “because of the quality of the result,” but let’s dive further into this topic.

AI’s Role in Writing Is Helpful but Limited

AI’s potential as a writer’s assistant is immense. At this point in their development, AI writing tools can help you edit your voice and style, proofread your paper to correct any errors, and perhaps most importantly, brainstorm and generate ideas. As long as you understand AI’s limitations, you can make the most out of everything it offers.

The problem, however, is that some beginner writers, including college students, neglect to study AI’s flaws before delegating the entire writing process to an AI tool of their choice. When this happens, all sorts of negative consequences are guaranteed to ensue—from problems with your university’s academic integrity committee to a failed class and beyond.

The only way to ensure that the AI tools you use work for you instead of against you is to realize that AI’s role in writing is helpful but limited, at least for now. You can and should use them for certain parts of the writing process. Most of the work should still belong to a human writer, yourself or a professional custom writing service employee.

The Key Catch

You’ve probably heard this a million times, but we have to reinstate it: writing skills do matter. Whether you become the CEO of a tech company, an underwater welder, or a fashion consultant, you will still use your writing skills at least occasionally. Your ability to express yourself in writing will make or break a lot of professional and personal opportunities coming your way.

When schools give so many writing tasks to students, they want you to explore the subject you’re studying and expand your expertise. Nevertheless, the second essential reason is professors’ understanding of the value of writing skills in the post-graduation world. Cover letters, opening lines on dating apps, and self-presentation intros are only a few examples of how you will keep using your ability to write throughout your life.

By fully delegating your essays, research papers, and other college writing assignments to AI, you’re missing out on a chance to develop your skills. As any thoughtful EssayPro reviews will let you know, a way smarter approach is to write the first draft yourself and then hire a human editor. They will fix the imperfections and provide actionable feedback to help you grow.

Over-relying on AI Writing Tools Is a Risk

Also, as we’ve briefly mentioned before, over-relying on AI writing tools in academic contexts is risky. First, there is a problem with originality in AI-generated texts. Contrary to what you might have heard, an essay written by ChatGPT (or any other AI writing tool, for that matter) isn’t unique.

Sure, it will likely contain little to no plagiarism; any plagiarism detector will show you that. At the same time, it won’t be original, either. AI can only rearrange and repurpose the data it has been fed, so it’s inherently incapable of generating entirely original ideas and arguments.

So, someone who is well-familiar with the topic of your essay (say, your professors) will instantly catch uncited ideas that belong to a known expert in your field. You might get in trouble because of a lack of necessary references.

Alternatively, you might be caught using AI tools, which isn’t ideal. AI content detectors aren’t reliable. For example, they often mark essays written by ESL writers as “AI generated.” And yet, a lot of professors still use those. So, unless you want to face the consequences and potentially get a failing grade, we recommend you never submit an AI-generated paper without carefully editing it first (or hiring someone to edit it for you).

So, How Do You Use AI Writing Tools Correctly?

However, we would never claim that AI tools have no place in the writing process—that would be blatantly false. We only warn you about the need to understand where AI is helpful and where it’s not.

Let’s look at a few examples of how you can use AI writing tools constructively without entrusting them with your entire essay:

• Creating a rough outline. AI can generate a basic structure for your essay, laying out a framework of headings and subheadings. This helps organize your thoughts and gives you a clear roadmap to follow. But remember, the depth and direction of the content should be uniquely yours.
• Brainstorming and generating ideas. AI tools can suggest various themes and concepts based on your topic. Use these suggestions as a springboard for your ideas; enrich them with your insights and experiences.
• Research and fact-checking (to an extent!). While AI can quickly gather information and data relevant to your topic, verify the accuracy of these facts yourself. AI is a great starting point for research, but it’s not fully reliable. Human oversight is a must.
• Grammar and style checks. AI is useful for refining the technical aspects of your writing. It can spot grammatical errors, suggest better word choices, and improve sentence structure. However, don’t accept the suggestions mindlessly—consider each of them critically to maintain your unique voice and style.

That’s pretty much it. For everything else, you’re better off with a writing professional and your writing skills.

An Afterword

Ultimately, you decide whether to write your essay, hire a human writer, or use an AI writing tool. According to the SaveMyGrade review, the main thing we’d like you to take away from this post is that AI can help a human writer get better, but it can’t produce a piece of writing as great as a human writer can. It might be possible to do it one day, but not today.