Lessons from AI: Unveiling the Art of Exceptional Writing

Writing can feel incredibly daunting, and that's why we came up with the term "writer's block" to capture its unique challenge. We constantly debate whether writing well is a skill that can be learned or if it's simply something innate. The process of writing requires long periods of intense focus and undivided attention, and achieving excellence in writing usually involves a prolonged process of revision.

For many of us, writing feels like one of the most burdensome activities we can engage in. This is especially true for students. For many of them, writing essays and other similar papers is one of the most difficult tasks. Therefore, they turn to services such as Easy Essay. The help of professional writers makes the task of writing a good essay easier.

AI in Writing

Generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, present an enticing opportunity to optimize the writing process. While they undoubtedly increase efficiency and reduce the effort required to write, they do not inherently improve the quality of the writing itself. The program generates surprisingly competent prose that often mimics human authorship, but beyond the novelty of algorithmic writing, the overall quality of its output remains largely unremarkable.

Some believe that ChatGPT can write, but it lacks the ability to write exceptionally well. In fact, some professors discourage students from using the tool, appealing to their sense of pride: "Yes, you could use AI to cheat on your essay, but is a C+ really what you want?"

On the other hand, there is recognition that AI tools are shaping the professional world students will enter upon graduation. As a result, some educators are beginning to allow their use in controlled settings, offering them as automated writing tutors or advanced grammar-checking tools.

However, even proponents of AI suggest that students should maintain control over their writing, especially when seeking help with tasks such as "write my coursework." They advise careful editing of any AI-generated output to ensure accuracy, style, and sophistication.

Predictive Algorithms

The conventional and unoriginal nature of most AI-generated writing can be attributed to predictive algorithms. ChatGPT, Bing, and Claude are advanced autocomplete tools that use human text databases, including books, articles, and online content. They identify and predict patterns of phrases, which inevitably leads to a certain predictability in their output as well.

Does predictable writing automatically imply poor writing? When we discuss good writing, what do we truly mean? As we delve into new possibilities for utilizing large language models and assess their ability to enhance our communication, AI prompts us to contemplate the qualities we genuinely cherish in our writing. How do we gauge the excellence of writing, and how proficient is AI in this regard?

In our educational journey, we are taught that good writing is characterized by clarity, conciseness, and grammatical accuracy. However, it surely encompasses other attributes as well. Perhaps exceptional writing also pushes boundaries in terms of structure and content, evokes an emotional response from readers, or employs masterful syntax and sophisticated vocabulary. Maybe good writing possesses an indescribable spark, an inherent vitality, a quality that is recognized on sight. Alternatively, good writing emanates a strong sense of voice.

Yet, what truly constitutes a strong voice, and why does ChatGPT's voice often lack impact?

The Significance of Human Error

"The Elements of Style," a classic writing reference by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, presents a set of concrete rules. According to the authors, adhering to these conventions is crucial for effective writing. This includes organizing sentences into paragraphs focused on single topics, following grammatical rules like avoiding comma splices and eliminating unnecessary words to achieve efficiency and organization.

Applying these rules requires effort from any human writer. We all make occasional errors, such as comma splices, using more words than necessary, or burying our main point within a paragraph. In contrast, ChatGPT consistently follows Strunk and White's conventions unless instructed otherwise. Its ability to generate grammatically correct sentences quickly is impressive, although it may be unsettling and mildly humbling for us fallible human writers. For teachers attempting to identify cheating students, the absence of typos and grammatical mistakes often raises suspicions.

We often embrace and even anticipate a certain level of uniqueness in our writing, and the rules themselves can be unclear and flexible. Take the Oxford comma, for instance, which has a dedicated following despite being discouraged by some style guides. Additionally, languages like African American Vernacular English have their own grammatical structures that differ from standard American English.

Conventions can also change over time. For example, we now commonly use "they" as a singular pronoun, whereas it was exclusively plural not long ago.

As we explore new applications for large language models and contemplate how they can enhance our communication, AI challenges us to consider the qualities we truly value in our writing.

Consistently adhering to conventional writing is effective because its predictability makes it reader-friendly. When you know that the main point of a paragraph will be in the opening, you can read more quickly without having to search for it.

Merely adhering to the rules does not yield excellent writing; it produces conventional and unremarkable prose commonly found in business reports, policy memos, and research articles. In his critique of an AI-generated novel titled "Death of an Author," Dwight Garner characterizes the writing as possessing "the sideways shuffle of a Wikipedia entry." Even when prompted to include specific grammatical errors or deviate from norms, ChatGPT's writing tends to need more vitality. By design, the program defaults to a rhetorical middle ground, with mechanical deviations, while ours are organic. Let us strive for writing that excels in word choice, structure, readability, and eloquence while maintaining the essence of the original text.