‘Writing right’ in the age of generative AI
Jehoson Jiresh J
On a quiet evening, a teacher stares at the computer screen while checking the learners’ writing assignments. After evaluating the first few essays, the teacher finds something unusual: the essays are well-written, coherent, and insightful. Eventually, the teacher becomes disheartened, realizing that these essays are generated using AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools. The teacher’s disappointment is because the smooth flow of thought, flawless grammar, and impeccable vocabulary – once considered a result of rigorous handwork – now seem a farce, bereft of human labour. The dejected teacher views this as malpractice, undermining the spirit of the assignment.
However, the initial frustration subsides as the teacher starts contemplating: Is this the new normal in the AI-dominated academic landscape? Possibly this is not a question of malpractice, but instead a call to rethink what it takes to ‘write right’ in this milieu. The teacher further realizes that even if all the essays submitted by the learners are AI-generated, each text can still be unique depending on the specific prompts they create. It suggests that writing today is less about producing text and more about orchestrating thoughts into text using AI tools.
The emergence of AI chatbots powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) has contested the conventional notions of skillsets and craft associated with writing and other creative work. AI driven chatbots are designed to generate texts that use a wide range of lexis, grammatically authentic texts that exhibit seamless coherence and a segueing flow of ideas. Consequently, the meticulous focus on vocabulary usage, grammar and syntax, transitional phrases, paragraph organization, and coherence seems less significant. This paradigm shift necessitates re-examining what it means to “write” for a human writer in an AI-dominated content creation milieu. In addition, it is vital to explore and hone the skills required to ethically curate unique and effective AI-generated texts.
Writing today can be defined as a systematic process of conceptual orchestration. The human writer becomes an architect of ideas, focusing on the comprehensive vision and structure of the text rather than its fundamental construction. It implies that writing is no longer about the mechanics of language production, but instead, a higher-order cognitive and creative process that blends strategic collaboration with AI tools. It involves the potential to conceptualize, guide, curate, and refine AI generated text while ensuring a unique human point of view and ethical standards. The new writing role demands expertise in prompt engineering, where crafting concise, nuanced directions for AI tools becomes germane. Such proficiency requires a thorough understanding of the subject content and AI’s capabilities, enabling writers to channel the generative process effectively. In addition, writers must hone a nuanced ability for critical analysis and refinement, evaluating AI-generated content for scope of improvement, factual fallacies, or logical contrariety.
Considering this new dimension of writing skillsets, the following competencies are considered critical possessions of a writer aiming at ‘writing right’ in the AI-driven world.

Posing the right questions: the art of prompting
The crux of effective AI-generated content lies in the ability to pose the best prompts or questions. The relevant skills include creative and critical thinking, as the quality of the prompts determines the quality of the generated text. Especially in a scenario where AI has made knowledge accessible to anyone, the one who can pose the most inquisitive, unique, and probing questions possesses an edge over others. Crafty prompting thus draws on in-depth understanding of the subject and the potential to foresee the nuances of the information required. Such clarity would enable the prompter to choose the right words in the best order to generate the most accurate, bespoke, and compelling content. In addition, incorporating a multidisciplinary approach to construct prompts can remarkably enrich the quality of the AI output. Including insightful inputs from diverse fields can provide a richer, more nuanced viewpoint. It also enables writers to deduce connections between dichotomous domains, facilitates deeper engagement, and creates holistic content. For example, to generate a discussion on the impact of climate change on urban planning, the prompt could include specific insights from environmental science, sociology, economics, and architecture.
Ensuring authenticity and purpose: critical validation
While rapid text generation is the hallmark of AI chatbots, they do not ensure authenticity; critical thinking is appropriate to evaluate the generated information. It is vital to note that AI-generated texts can fabricate information to satisfy the human prompt, which can lead to misleading or false information. This phenomenon can further contribute to the already plaguing ‘disinfodemic’, a term popularized by the World Health Organization (WHO) during the COVID-19 pandemic, which denotes a pandemic-like spreading of misinformation. For this reason, the writers must diligently check for the authenticity of the information and probe the purpose and agenda that can be influenced by already available web content. This intriguing process includes scrutinizing the generated content for accuracy to ensure the text meets the intended objective.
Negotiating the algorithmic biascope
AI-generated content is not immune to algorithmic bias. The term “algorithmic biascope”, coined and used by the author in different contexts, encapsulates the potential tendency of algorithms to inform and shape people’s thought processes and worldviews. The algorithms can reflect and substantiate an individual’s inherent perceptions and biases and those embedded within AI systems. It can lead to a scenario where seemingly telescopic or microscopic views on issues, events, and socio-political changes provided by the algorithms can originally be ‘biascopic’ views. The deconstruction of such bias requires commitment to rationality, critical thinking, scientific temper, and progressive thinking. Besides, it is also vital to challenge one’s perceptions about diverse discourses influenced by socio-economic and cultural biases. The ability to contest algorithms-based texts and common notions with suspicion is an investment made by scholarly writers aiming to generate more balanced, fair, and effectual AI content.
Ensuring intellectual honesty: acknowledging AI’s role
The sceptics of AI use in academia foreground the latent issues concerning academic integrity in attributing authorship. While it is crucial to address these concerns, the pursuit of evolving practical guidelines to set new standards of academic integrity and ethical frameworks can be seen as an opportunity rather than as a threat. Constructive frameworks to ensure the ethical use of AI enable the rethinking of academic integrity progressively in the ever-evolving facets of scholarship. To start with, human prompters can use the citation format prescribed by citation styles like Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA) to cite AI-generated content within the text and also in the reference list. The reference styles require the mention of the prompt used to generate specific AI-generated quotes and paraphrased content. This realistic shift rationalizes the significance of human prompting in conceptually orchestrating the writing process using AI. Furthermore, the writers must also be aware of the ethical implications of using AI, involving privacy, data security, and scope for misuse and abuse concerning societal convictions and differences.
In conclusion, the collaboration of Human and Artificial Intelligence (HAI) provides a viable tool for writing in the contemporary context. While AI can offer efficiency, superabundant data sets and rapid generation of texts, human prompters contribute with their unique cultural nuances, interdisciplinary connections, and contextual intelligence. This adaptability integrates the skill to conduct an orchestra of diverse musicians to blend and harmonize genuine human emotions, intuitive clarity over personal experiences, and AI’s mechanical prowess. Overall, by honing critical prompting skills, evaluating the generated content, negotiating biases, and ensuring ethical and intellectual integrity, today’s writers can co-produce written texts that are engaging, innovative, insightful, and intellectually sound. A metacognitive awareness aimed at navigating this advanced landscape should propel the crafty orchestration of texts by blending human inquisitiveness and machine efficiency.
The author is an assistant professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies, Christ Deemed to be University, Bengaluru. The author can be reached at jehoson.jiresh@christuniversity.in.