AI for assignments? Always Use AI with Caution

AI for assignments

New AI tools are appearing pretty much every week and in education settings, AI is a genie that is well and truly out of the bottle. Now more than ever it’s time to learn some discipline in how you use AI for assignments without falling foul of your university’s policies.

To help you with that here’s a useful way of remembering how to exercise caution when using AI for assignments:

Check your prompts. The information you get out is only as good as the requests you put in.

Approach any information the AI tool produces cautiously (be a critical reader).

Understand that Large Language Models (including ChatGPT) are designed only to summarise, predict and generate texts. They won’t do the thinking for you.

Take the time to verify any claims made and check the reliability of any sources.

Identify any use of AI tools (including large language models such as Chat GPT) in the student declaration form your university provides. Always declare your use of AI tools and explain how you used them.

Observe the principles of Good Academic Practice at all times.

Never submit chunks of text produced by AI as your own work. You may be in breach of your university’s academic conduct regulations.

Do you see what we did there!

We cannot uninvent AI but we also cannot let it replace learning so when using AI for assignments use caution and make notes on which tools you used and what you used them for. Different universities have different policies so be sure to read yours very carefully and follow the guidelines closely.

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Glenn Stevens

Academic writer and researcher. PhD supervisor. Glenn is also a qualified English teacher. He previously had an extensive career in publishing. Glenn lives in the UK.
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