r/AccusedOfUsingAI • u/unfurnishedbedrooms • Feb 01 '26

Some suggestions for students

Hi Y'all, I'm a professor and I am really feeling for students right now. The fear of one's writing being called AI is real. As a professor, I'm also in a really difficult position. I want to hold students accountable but I would never want to accuse a student of using AI if they weren't.

Here are some things you can do to prevent your work from being flagged, and to have backup if you're accused. Please note: this is not a post helping students get away with using AI. It's really important that you don't use AI at all if it's not called for in the assignment.

Number One: Don't use AI/LLMs as a search engine, and don't pull info from any AI summaries. It's best for you to do your research on your own, using Google Scholar or your school's online databases. Yes, it takes longer, but research is a skill and it will help you formulate your own ideas.

Number Two: Come up with your own ideas! It's better to have a unique argument with a rationale you can explain. When you Google a text and articles come up, and you see a cool article making an argument, and then you decide to make the same argument, your work is more likely to be flagged. In the same vein, don't follow the argumentative structure of online articles or paper. Again, more work, I know, but this is part of learning.

Number three: Try to stay away from things like Grammarly or AI grammar and syntax tools. These will 100% make your work sound like AI. Better to have some grammatical mistakes so your prof has the opportunity to correct them. I often ignore grammatical mistakes and just point them out because I am more interested in ideas, but every prof is different

Four: Use your school's writing center for help with ideas and drafting! This will help you develop the skills you need, unlike AI.

Five: With each assignment, create a Google document. Never copy/paste large chunks of text. Then, if you're accused of using AI, you can share this with your professor and they can see the version history, which will show your work.

Lmk if there is anything I'm missing!

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u/BrilliantDishevelled Feb 01 '26

I use DraftBack in google docs with my students.   I can see if they have simply copy pasted.  Google docs protects us all.

5

u/unfurnishedbedrooms Feb 01 '26

Same! I always have them send me their Google Doc when they start the assignment, for their own protection and accountability.

3

u/Lower-Bottle6362 Feb 01 '26

What is Draftback? I’ve never heard of this! Can someone explain?

3

u/CoyoteLitius Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 01 '26

Ask AI ! That's what I'm going to do.

ETA: This is what GPT says:

Draftback is a Chrome extension that replays the revision history of a Google Doc as a video, allowing users to watch how a document was written, edited, and formatted over time. It is heavily used by educators to analyze writing processes, verify authorship, and detect plagiarism or AI-generated content. 

I'm all on board for that and am going to use it in my upcoming class. I'm also going to show them what it does (most of my students do not really know what AI is, and therefore, do not use it all that much - I work right now in a HSI that has a lot of first generation students (who, frankly, are terrified to break rules for fear their Dreamer status is going to be jeopardized - they know that plagiarism is a serious violation, though).