AI use

Here is a non-exhaustive list of ways one might use AI in the writing process (most items borrowed verbatim from Dynomight's list here):

1. Ask AI to find spelling or grammar errors.
2. Use AI as an advanced thesaurus ("Give me 50 words with meanings interpolating between 'aggressive' and 'punctilious.'")
3. Ask AI factual questions when doing research.
4. Trust the answers to those questions.
5. Use AI to find sources.
6. Use AI to summarize sources to decide which ones to engage with in more depth.
7. Use AI to search through and manage one's collection of notes and readings.
8. Ask AI for options to rephrase an awkward sentence.
9. Use those options verbatim.
10. Ask AI for high-level organizational suggestions.
11. Ask AI to make figures/tables/code.
12. Run an entire essay through an AI to "clean it up".
13. Ask an AI to give a rough prototype of the next section.
14. Talk to AI about ideas you have.
15. Ask it to generate an outline based on such a conversation.
16. Dictate a draft of an essay to AI and have it clean up the prose to use as a rough draft.
17. Use AI as a personal tutor for a subject you know little about, including finding learning resources but also writing explanations and answering questions.

Except 12, I do all of these to varying degrees. 9 is rare, I would almost always meld the AI's suggestions with versions I already have (likewise with 13), and 4 requires the same kind of judgment one exercises with sources in general. 10 I'm not opposed to but it doesn't come up often (by the time I have a draft the structure is usually settled, structural suggestions from the AI would usually come if I'm doing 15).

My line around AI prose making it into my writing is not exactly that I never have AI write prose for me. Rather, it is that if, by the end, the final product sounds like AI rather than like me, then I have used it too much. I will sometimes have AI generate a version of a sentence or paragraph that I am struggling with, which I will meld with the version(s) I have so far. This usually improves the prose quality substantially. I also sometimes generate rough drafts by dictating and then having AI clean up the dictated prose, or assemble outlines from raw material like notes or chat transcripts, but these get entirely rewritten by the time the piece is published. Heuristically, I rarely have it operate over an entire piece (except when generating a rough draft specifically from dictated prose), but rather over localized sections (sentences or paragraphs), and I almost always meld its text with my own rather than using it verbatim.

My full policy for students is in My AI Syllabus Policy. The short version: AI use that enhances your learning is fine, AI use that helps you avoid learning is not.

In my teaching, I use AI for administrative work, for brainstorming ideas for assignments and lesson plans, for writing some boilerplate parts of syllabi and assignment descriptions, and to group students' reading responses into themes to make them easier to sort through. I never have AI grade assignments for me.

The design and front-end code are Claude's work — mostly Fable 5 and Opus 5, in Claude Code. I directed the process, chose among the options it proposed, and wrote or heavily edited all the prose; it did the visual design and wrote the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.