AI in Writing Center Appointments

In the Writing Center, we support your writing and your learning. We do this by talking through your ideas with you, asking questions about your intentions and meaning, sharing strategies for different phases of the writing process, and helping you learn about new genres of writing. Writing Center sessions should build your confidence and make you a better critical thinker about writing.  
 
The Writing Center can also be a place where you learn and discuss how AI can both support and inhibit your writing, learning, creativity, and critical thinking.  

For students

If you have used AI in your writing process, you can bring that writing to the Writing Center. Be sure to 

  • Check your instructor’s AI policy before your appointment (on their syllabus or assignment description) and bring the AI policy to the appointment.
  • Let your consultant know how you have used AI for the assignment. If your consultant knows how you have used AI, your session will be more productive.

Your consultant will not report unauthorized AI use to your instructor, but they will encourage you to use AI ethically and in alignment with your instructor’s guidelines.  

Suggestions for using AI in your writing :

  • Understand AI’s limitations, and always evaluate its output. AI is frequently inaccurate, and it often fabricates facts, sources, and quotations. Read our “Introduction to Gen AI” quick-guide.
  • Learn which phases of the writing process are best and least supported by AI. 
  • Learn how to prompt AI to ask you questions or give you information that develops your critical thinking and judgment. Read our “Write a Prompt for Gen AI” quick-guide.
  • Consider how using AI can impact your learning and skill development. Many writing assignments are designed to build your knowledge about your paper’s topic. Others are intended to develop your writing and critical thinking skills.  
  • Use AI ethically – Follow your instructor’s guidelines, and do not submit others’ writing to AI without their permission. 

For faculty

Writing Center consultants want to know your policy on AI use—whether you allow it, and if so, for what purposes or to what degree. In addition to your syllabus statement, consider providing a statement on AI use on each of your assignment descriptions. 

If a student discloses they have used AI tools in a way you have not authorized, the writing center consultant will tell them that this use may be in violation of your assignment guidelines and of Mason’s Academic Standards. In this case, the consultant may work with the student to develop new ideas and strategies for completing the assignment without AI tools. 

More about AI in Writing Center sessions with your students

  • Consultants will not introduce AI into a session if the writer has not used AI.
  • If your assignment allows, and both writer and consultant are comfortable using AI tools, the consultant may use AI tools in these ways during the session: 
    • Explain concepts, e.g. What is a synthesis?
    • Brainstorm ideas for a topic, e.g. What are some good questions to pursue for a research project on the problem of unhoused families in the US?
    • Revise outlines, e.g. Do you have recommendations for revising the structure of this outline for a white paper on policies to address transportation issues in Fairfax County?  
    • Identify thesis statements, topic sentences, evidence and analysis in student drafts
    • Seek options for reformulating the expression of ideas, e.g. What are three other ways of saying….? 
  • Writing Center consultants may also discuss the limitations of AI tools, including bias and inaccuracy (including fabrication of sources and quotations).