Writing in the Age of AI

The Composition Program approaches work with GenAI with two underlying beliefs. First, that technologies have always shaped the writing that humans do. From stylus to papyrus to pencil, paper, typewriter, computer and now GenAI, new technologies change the way that we go about the work of writing. Second, GenAI is here to stay and so our program needs to prepare students to write both with and without AI assistance. 

The program is in the midst of a three-year plan (2024-2027) to integrate AI-enriched writing practices across OHIO’s writing curricula. Our BRICKS Foundations course (ENG 1510) supports students as they develop a rhetorical framework for the use of GenAI and teaches students how to negotiate audience expectations around that use. In our BRICKS Advanced Writing Courses (ENG 2800, 2801, 2803, 2804, 2806, 2809) we offer students options to meet their personal and professional goals while supporting their own ethical stances toward GenAI. For instance, ENG 2800 integrates AI-supported research and composing practices throughout, while ENG 2806 teaches research skills through more traditional means. Students choose the course that meets their goals. The same is true in the department’s Writing Certificate (CTWRIT). Students who want to develop AI-enriched composing abilities can do so in “Composing in New Media” (ENG 3860), “Composing for the Community” (ENG 3870C), and in our new course, “Composing with AI” (ENG 3880).

GenAIs produce good text at astonishing speeds. They will change the way that many people write. Yet being a skilled human writer has never been so important. GenAIs produce good text quickly but only after a skilled human writer tells it what to do. If a writer doesn’t understand the rhetorical situation they’re writing in—What is my purpose? Who is my audience and what will be persuasive to them? What do I have to draw on as a writer?—the AI won’t produce good text. More importantly, an unskilled human writer can’t tell the difference between good AI-generated text and ineffective (or even ridiculous) AI-generated text. Teachers often discover students are cheating with AI because the text they’ve submitted is ridiculous; the student didn’t understand the assignment and so didn’t realize that what AI churned out was wrong.

Students with an eye on their future careers should also be asking themselves If AI can write better than I can, then why would anyone hire me? A recent book by Bowen and Watson (2025), actually claims that “C-level writing” is an “F” in the age of AI. An AI can generate “C” work quickly and cheaply. If all you can do is tell an AI to write something for you, then why should someone pay you?

This question of whether we still need writing classes also reveals some big assumptions about what writing is (and isn’t). The value of writing isn’t just the product that gets created at the end. The process we go through to get there is also valuable—sometimes more so. Writing is a utilitarian tool for recording information or making sales pitches but it’s also an art form, a way of understanding the world, a means of thinking, and a tool for processing the events of one’s life. You don’t have to become a novelist in order for your own human-generated writing to be worthwhile. At OHIO, we want to support your growth as a human writer (who is also able to leverage AI) because writing is more than a document you send to your boss. We want you to be a strong enough writer that you can write your boss a fantastic document (perhaps using AI). But we also want you to write to figure out what you believe about GenAI, and, perhaps most importantly, write to make meaning of your life. GenAI is only good for the first thing.

GenAIs are powerful tools for learning and for writing, but they are also destructive tools for learning and for your writing development when overused or used inappropriately. In some cases, using GenAI will undercut the purpose of an assignment and thus damage your learning, so your instructor may prohibit it. In other cases, your instructor may ask you to use GenAI for specific tasks or aims.

Students who do not abide by the GenAI policy are subject to the course’s plagiarism policy. This policy applies to all writing you do in a course, including major and minor writing projects and informal writing assignments such as discussion posts or response papers.

• At the beginning of any writing project, you must talk with your instructor if you would like to use GenAI in that project. Your instructor may prohibit that use because it would hinder the goals of the assignment or your instructor may limit the ways that you use GenAI. You may also be required to provide a transcript of your chat sessions or other documentation of your GenAI use.
• You must acknowledge your use of GenAI according to your instructor’s guidance. This might include a hyperlink, screenshot, a transcript related to your chat session, a brief “Acknowledgements” paragraph or a sentence after the main body of your paper (not included in the word count), a Works Cited entry, etc. Acknowledgements should contain a short rationale about how your approach was appropriate, transformational, and/or how it did not undercut the learning outcomes for the course or assignment.
• GenAI must be transformational, not transactional. This means that—if you have instructor permission—you may work with a GenAI to refine your ideas and the way that you express them, but they must be your ideas and your language. Copying-and-pasting chunks of text from a GenAI is prohibited. You must get approval for a transformational use of GenAI with your instructor before using it and then document that use. 

No.

Ohio University Composition faculty emphatically believe that receiving human feedback is an essential and irreplaceable part of the experience of growing as a writer. The faculty pledge to students that the feedback students receive was crafted by ourselves, not AI.

A significant number of our students have critically examined GenAIs and made ethical decisions to avoid them because of their impacts on, for example, water supply. Others find that GenAIs make too many mistakes or don’t produce high-quality texts or steamroll students’ own writerly voices. These are legitimate concerns and we take them seriously. We encourage students who oppose the use of GenAI to talk with their instructor or the Director of Composition about choosing the most appropriate course for them. Students may also request an alternative assignment that doesn’t require the use of a GenAI. GenAIs may be here to stay but that doesn’t mean we all need to use them all the time or that people aren’t able to produce better texts.