I have always explored new technology, trying to understand it and think about ways it might make my work more productive and efficient. Recently, like many people, I have thought a lot about AI Large Language tools that have burst onto the scene. I write to convey to others my perspective on learning, and I teach a course for educators on writing a Literature Review as part of an Ed.D dissertation.
Writing is hard, and it takes focus to transfer thoughts to clear writing. I appreciate tools that make the job less time-consuming. Re-writing has always seemed a boring task, I admire professional editors, but that is a job I do not aspire to. Spell and grammar checkers do make the editing process almost fun to keep score to reduce my errors. Even more important than fixing my writing, I appreciate the prompt feedback I get.
Search tools help me recall a book reference or famous quote that is a foggy memory in my brain. Now, comes along Large Language Generative AI that can produce written scripts about any topic. This could be a bigger breakthrough to make my writing more efficient. My writing personal blogs are one thing, but I worry about my graduate students and the ethical questions of what constitutes original writing in a dissertation. I remind these doctoral candidates that their dissertations will become their first major scholarly work published and available online for anyone to search for perpetuity. It is critical that they ethically write their publication and cite any reference that is not their thoughts. But, why not use the best technology to support your thinking and writing? The goal is to create a quality dissertation, not necessarily a rating of their writing skills.
I have been using the app Grammarly for about two years now, and it is a regular part of my writing process. I don’t always agree with its rewrite suggestions, but it does a great job of finding errors and helping improve my work. I also have experimented with a couple of AI tools, ChatGPT and Perplexity. It is fun to experiment with what the tools can write based on prompts. Brainstorming with one of these tools is almost like chatting among a team of peers searching for ideas.
Grammarly Go is a new AI-based subscription service offered by Grammarly. It helps writers begin the writing process, brainstorm ideas, develop a research plan, and create a potential outline, Users can improve their writing with various advanced features, such as a check for plagiarism checker, vocabulary enhancement suggestions, and a tone detector that can analyze the tone of their writing and provide feedback and suggestions to improve it. Grammarly Go is an impressive tool for anyone looking to improve their writing skills and take their writing to the next level.
Information on Grammrly Go can be reviewed in this recent. Blog on Grammarly Go Also, this recent webinar Making the Generative AI Leap demonstrates using Grammarly Go and includes a thoughtful higher education discussion by Univ. of Florida professor Sidney Dobrin author of AI and Writing.
I plan to continue to use and learn about Grammarly Go to improve my writing and produce more ideas in written form. I will share this with my graduate students as well. Discussing this openly is the best way to avoid them thinking this is a shortcut to creating a Literature Review or making it easier to obscure plagiarism. Discussing this with students helps to avoid those unethical behaviors. Their goal is still to develop their thinking to create a comprehensive research document. There is always some reluctance to embrace new technology, and somehow, in the back of our minds, that technology will diminish real learning from the “good ole days.” I plan to embrace AI tools just like I enjoy Internet searches over thumbing through a library card catalog.