Professors Can Spot AI. Here's Why That Matters For Writers
Shortcuts are tempting. Many students are feeding prompts to ChatGPT and turning in whatever comes out.
An international study led by University of East Anglia compared 145 student essays with 145 ChatGPT essays on the same topics. The result: professors could tell the difference with high confidence.
AI pieces were clean, grammatical, and coherent. But they lacked the engagement signals human writers use by habit and by intent.
Researchers found that student essays included nearly three times more engagement features than AI drafts. These include personal asides, rhetorical questions, direct reader mentions, and persuasive framing that grounds an argument in lived context.
One researcher put it plainly: "When students come to school, college, or university, we're not just teaching them how to write, we're teaching them how to think - and that's something no algorithm can replicate." That's the real gap.
Takeaway For Professional Writers
Grammar isn't your edge. Voice, stance, and how you move a reader through an idea are.
Editors and audiences can feel the difference between information and attention. AI delivers information. You deliver attention.
A Quick "Engagement Pass" Checklist
- Add one lived detail that only you could know (a moment, metric, or constraint from experience).
- State a clear stance in one line. No hedging.
- Ask one specific question that pushes the reader forward, not a filler question.
- Mention the reader directly where it serves the argument ("you," "your").
- Contrast ideas: before/after, risk/reward, cost/benefit.
- Vary sentence length. Short for punch. Longer for context.
- Swap vague adjectives for concrete nouns and verbs.
- Cite one credible source you actually reviewed, and add why it matters.
- Cut the first two warm-up lines. Start at the turn.
- End with an actionable next step, not a recap.
If You Use AI, Use It Like This
- Draft structure, not voice: have AI outline angles and counterpoints, then write the core argument yourself.
- Collect raw material: ask for examples, stats, and objections; verify them; pick only what strengthens your point.
- Do a human rewrite: inject a stance, lived detail, and a specific reader promise in the opening.
- Run an engagement pass using the checklist above before you proofread.
- Optional: sharpen your prompting so outputs are easier to edit, not ready to ship. See practical prompt resources for writers here and tool roundups here.
For Educators and Editors
Ask for process notes: outline, sources, and a short paragraph on the writer's angle. It rewards thinking and makes lazy AI pastes obvious.
Grade for engagement signals alongside accuracy. You'll raise quality and reduce detection guesswork.
Bottom Line
AI writes passable text. You write arguments that move people.
Use tools to speed the work you shouldn't be doing by hand. Do the thinking yourself-because that's what the reader is actually buying.
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