Writing With AI

students' use of Generative AI is inevitable in lab writing.

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools are very attractive due to their amazing ability to generate human-written-like text. Since ChatGPT's public launch in November 2022, millions of users have accessed this tool, and engineering students are no exception. Engineering lab instructors should provide a clear position on ChatGPT to their students.

Potential impact of ChatGPT on Students' lab writing

Faculty don’t need to discourage students from using ChatGPT. Instead, faculty need to provide clear guidelines about ChatGPT in the context of their labs. However, copying the content in total or in part from ChatGPT is plagiarism. Faculty need to strengthen their education on academic integrity.

Note to your students that they can become better writers than ChatGPT because they know the lab’s rhetorical situation (audience, writer, purpose, and context) much better. 

Plagiarism in COLLEGE writing

In the context of academic writing, plagiarizing involves using words, ideas, or information from a source without citing it correctly. It is plagiarism if students bypass their "productive thinking" and copy/paste the products from ChatGPT.


1. Should plagiarism be punished?

Good faith efforts to complete a task or assignment that went wrong somehow are very common. Requiring a revision process improves learning more than punishment—but students should know the risks of plagiarism or copyright violation in the workplace.

2. What are the typical consequences of plagiarism in the workplace?

Being fired; Damaged reputation; Retraction of publications/blacklisting from publication venues; Lawsuits from copyright holder/original author

3. Do plagiarism checkers such as Turnitin/Safeassign work?

Best to use them to show students where they need to revise before final submission.

Known problems with Turnitin/Safeassign include 1) flagging direct quotations and correct end citations because they are identical to…the original thing being quoted and 2) flagging reworked text from previous assignments (like rough drafts).

4. Is it possible to plagiarize from yourself?

Yes, in the sense that you should not re-use your own academic writing verbatim between different publications. It is OK to cite yourself when referring to past work. This doesn’t apply to “boilerplate” text that is intended to be reused verbatim.

5. Do students need to cite in-class handouts?

Citations are usually used to document published information. Assignment prompts are usually considered “boilerplate” writing that does not need to be formally cited. If you reference another person’s teaching materials in your materials (or research), do cite them.

6. Do students need to cite common knowledge?

Basic scientific facts typically do not need to be cited, but how “common” common knowledge is varies between fields.

7. Can you plagiarize an image?

Yes, if you claim it as your own without citing it. You can also get into copyright trouble with images more easily than with text.

8. Can you copy and paste figures from the internet?

You have “educational fair use” to use small selections from copyrighted materials inside a classroom, so as long as you cite where the image came from, it can be used internally. However, you typically need legal copyright permission to reproduce images for publication or use in presentations.

9. How do you point out plagiarism issues to a student?

In a rough draft, 1) Note/highlight problematic areas (TurnItIn score may be helpful); meeting may not be needed, 2) Require revisions or re-do if necessary

In a final graded assignment, 1) Meet with the student, 2) Give them a chance to own their mistake, 3) If the problem is fixable, and there is still time to re-grade, require revisions, and 4) If the problem is too pervasive or blatant to fix, follow your institution’s academic discipline guidance.

Chat GPT guideline samples.

Sample 1:

ChatGPT guidelines 

1. ChatGPT may assist you when writing labs; however, copying the content in total or in part from ChatGPT is plagiarism. The work you submit must be your own, not ChatGPT's. 

2. You should understand the recurring flaws in ChatGPT content and the risks of using such content, such as inaccuracy, bias, obsolescence, and unclarity of origins. 

3. You can use ChatGPT when writing the labs, you must document how you have used it after the conclusion section. 


Sample 2:

ChatGPT Guidelines of [Lab]

You are allowed to use ChatGPT to get help for writing your lab reports, with the following considerations: 

ChatGPT is good at: 

ChatGPT is NOT so good at: 

ChatGPT sometimes does terrible things, such as: 


Sample 3:

ChatGPT policy 

[Instructor Name]’s philosophy: 

ChatGPT is a tool.  Be familiar with any tool.  Know its strengths and weaknesses. 

Use ChatGPT to help your learning process, do not use it as a mean to get a product. 

As we are all getting used to this new tool, I am asking for transparency (we document our prompts and include them in the Appendix), so we can establish guidelines in the future. 

Here are some things to consider: 

Let’s together come up with mutually agreeable terms that we can try this term. 


Sample 4:

Syllabus policy on AI mark 1.0 

[Instructor Name]

6-21-23

Generative AI is a powerful tool, but it will never be able to answer the question, “What did I do today?” I aim to allow reasonable uses of AI to support the writing process as well as support grammar and spelling editing, but using it to generate the entire body of assignments is inappropriate. 

This class is based around the concept of “writing to learn”--by virtue of writing about something, you will come to know it better. AI can’t replace this. You must do substantial original writing, no matter its quality, in order to learn this material. In particular, do not use AI to write personal reflections of any kind. 

All use of generative AI (like Chat GPT) in this class must be extensively documented. For every assignment where you use one of these tools, please submit an attachment where you disclose every “prompt” you gave the AI (the text you typed in to get a result) as well as the entirety of the results it gave you. 


Sample 5:

CHATGPT GUIDELINES IN LAB WRITING 

[Instructor Name]

Generative AI’s (GAI’s) such as ChatGPT can be useful tools for engineering students and for practicing engineers.  Some examples of potential positive impact in report writing include: 

However, like any tool, when used improperly, may result in a negative impact.  Engineers and students need to critically review the content of the generated output before using it for their work.  Some common weaknesses include: 

You may use generative AI’s to assist with report writing in this class.  However,  

Bottom line:  work you submit is YOUR WORK!  You are responsible for achieving all learning objectives. 


Sample 6:

ChatGPT Guides

Use of generative AI (ChatGPT) to aid your lab writing

Opportunities for ChatGPT in lab writing

Hazards of ChatGPT in lab writing

Document your use of ChatGPT in your report


References