Grading student essays, even for a new teacher, is difficult in these modern digital times when AI-generated content has become rampant. Whether a student writes an essay or AI requires an eye and understanding of specific telltale signs. This article discusses six key areas that can be used to recognize with ease AI-generated essays and maintain the integrity of your assessments.
Style and Tone Consistency
First, there is the use of the same style and tone within the essay. Human writers usually have slight discrepancies or a change in tone depending on what they are discussing or whether they get emotionally involved in what they are discussing. In AI-generated essays, the tone stays the same throughout the essay and does not seem very natural. The similarity of sentence structure with the lack of personal voice could also indicate that a human does not write the text.
Overly Polished and Complex Language
AI tools often produce essays with language that is overly polished and formal. While this may sound like a positive quality, it may raise a red flag if the language applied is a bit too advanced or sophisticated for the student’s level. Look at the vocabulary and sentence structures; if the essay seems to be more characteristic of a professionally written essay than student work, it could be AI-generated. This is particularly suspicious when the writing does not contain one or two mistakes or colloquialisms common in all student essays.
Lack of Deep Analysis and Personal Insight
Human writers tend to fill their essays with their personal insight, opinions, and depth of analysis that attest to how well they understand the topic. Artificial intelligence tends to stick mostly to superficial information that does not delve into the more profound or critical aspects of any issue under discussion. If there is not a unique vision in the essay, or if the topic has not been discussed beyond what basic explanation allows, then it may be the case of AI-generated content.
Repetitive Content and Ideas
Essays written through AI can be repetitive, whereby the same phrases or ideas keep on showing in the text. This is because sometimes AI tools face a problem in generating variance in their content, which may lead to redundancy. If you find out that the points are told many times with no new information or insight, it could always tell you that a human did not write the essay. This becomes more evident in longer essays, where the AI content may be repetitive in loops or repeat variations of previously written sections.
Unusual Formatting or Structure
AI-written essays sometimes take on peculiar patterns in formatting or structure not created by human hands. One finds inconsistencies either in paragraph length, unexpected bullet points, or even spacing. Suppose an essay has a highly calculated means of writing mechanism that would feel mechanical and seamless would beg the question of whether it is an essay completely generated by AI. Human writers generally produce works that are more varied in formatting and organic in structure.
Use an AI Detector
There are effective ways to confirm whether an essay is AI-generated using an AI detector. They are tools that check the text for patterns typical only for AI-generated content. Such tools might come in handy for teachers who have just started their teaching career and are still looking for ways to spot such content manually. While not perfect, AI detectors can give you a generally reliable preliminary analysis and are well worth placing in your toolbox of academic integrity maintenance in the classroom.
Conclusion
Grading and assessing essays is daunting work for any beginning teacher, especially in light of emerging AI-generated content. Pay attention to common AI patterns in your students’ writing. AI detectors will help confirm your suspicion and ensure the validity of your assessments. With experience, these techniques will become second nature to you; you will be able to support your students in their learning while being confident that the work has genuinely been theirs.