ChatGPT is the talk of the town right now, with its language generation abilities. While some people are merely playing with it, others are testing the AI out and seeing how good it is for business and education. Can ChatGPT write essays? Absolutely. Is it safe to use ChatGPT for essays? That depends.
ChatGPT as an Essay Writer
The entire point of writing an essay is to practice research and explaining your ideas in a logical manner. It’s part of education, which is why plagiarism and copying is so frowned upon. Yes, ChatGPT can write essays for you, but they still aren’t as high quality as if you did it yourself. The better you get at prompting, however, the more impressive the results will be.
Schools Frown On AI Written Essays
According to many sources, directly submitting AI produced essays counts as plagiarism because you didn’t write it yourself. That can result in severe penalties that, frankly, aren’t worth it. You definitely don’t want to be caught turning in an AI essay, so how can you get around this?
The best option is to use ChatGPT for essay inspiration and help, rather than letting it write everything for you. Let’s look at how you can do that and not get into trouble.
How to Use ChatGPT to Write an Essay
Rather than type the topic into the AI and let it produce the words, there are many ways to get ChatGPT to helped you with your essay writing.
Get Topic Ideas for Your Essay
Not sure what to write about? The easiest way to get a great topic is to ask ChatGPT. For example, if your class assignment is to write an essay about global warming, you still need to come up with a good perspective. Pop into ChatGPT and type in “Give me 25 argumentative (or any type) essay topics based around global warming.”
I just did this and this is what ChatGPT responded with:
- The urgent need for global action to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
- The role of human activities in causing global warming: Is it a natural phenomenon or human-induced?
- Climate change denial: Debunking myths and misconceptions about global warming.
- The moral responsibility of developed nations in addressing global warming.
- The impact of global warming on vulnerable communities and the need for climate justice.
- The role of renewable energy in mitigating global warming and transitioning to a sustainable future.
- The economic costs of global warming and the need for climate-conscious policies.
- The link between global warming and extreme weather events: What the science says.
- The role of deforestation in exacerbating global warming and the need for forest conservation.
- The impact of global warming on wildlife and biodiversity conservation.
- The social and cultural implications of global warming: How it affects human societies and ways of life.
- The role of technological innovation in addressing global warming.
- The effectiveness of international agreements and policies in mitigating global warming.
- The ethical implications of global warming and the need for individual and collective action.
- The impact of global warming on health: From heatwaves to disease outbreaks.
- The role of education and awareness in combating global warming.
- The intersectionality of global warming and social justice issues: Gender, race, and inequality.
- The impact of global warming on food production and food security.
- The role of businesses in addressing global warming: Corporate responsibility and sustainable practices.
- The role of agriculture in contributing to global warming and the need for sustainable farming practices.
- Geoengineering as a solution to global warming: Pros and cons.
- The role of government and policy-making in mitigating global warming.
- The impact of global warming on coastal communities and the need for adaptation measures.
- The role of youth and activism in addressing global warming.
- The link between global warming and migration: Climate refugees and the need for international cooperation.
It should be nice and easy to choose a topic from all of these! And if you don’t like any of the topics, you can easily adjust the prompt to find something better.
Build a Solid Outline
Once you’ve selected your topic, you can have the AI come up with the outline. This will depend on how long your essay is supposed to be. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’re going to use the role of technological innovation in addressing global warming and we’ll set it at 2k words.
Here is the outline that ChatGPT came up with:
I. Introduction
- Definition of global warming and its impacts on the environment, society, and economy
- Thesis statement: Technological innovation plays a critical role in addressing global warming by providing solutions for mitigation and adaptation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and promoting sustainability.
II. Technological innovation for mitigation of global warming
- Discuss various technological innovations such as renewable energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal), energy-efficient technologies, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques
- Present evidence and examples of how these innovations have contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the effects of global warming
- Address potential challenges and criticisms of these technologies, such as cost, scalability, and environmental impacts
III. Technological innovation for adaptation to global warming
- Discuss technological innovations for adapting to the impacts of global warming, such as resilient infrastructure, advanced warning systems, and climate-smart agriculture
- Present evidence and examples of how these technologies have helped communities and ecosystems adapt to changing climatic conditions
- Address potential challenges and limitations of these technologies, such as accessibility, affordability, and social equity issues
IV. Government and policy support for technological innovation in addressing global warming
- Discuss the role of government and policies in promoting and supporting technological innovation for addressing global warming
- Present examples of government initiatives, regulations, and incentives that have fostered technological innovation in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other climate solutions
- Discuss potential challenges and opportunities in government-led efforts to promote technological innovation
V. Private sector and business involvement in technological innovation for addressing global warming
- Discuss the role of private sector and businesses in driving technological innovation for addressing global warming
- Present examples of corporate sustainability initiatives, investments in clean technologies, and innovations in supply chains that have contributed to mitigating global warming
- Discuss potential challenges and criticisms of private sector involvement in climate innovation, such as profit motives, greenwashing, and potential conflicts of interest
VI. Social and ethical considerations of technological innovation in addressing global warming
- Discuss the social and ethical implications of technological innovation for addressing global warming
- Address issues such as equity, access, and justice in the deployment and distribution of climate technologies
- Discuss potential concerns related to technological solutions, such as unintended consequences, ethical dilemmas, and societal implications
VII. Conclusion
- Summarize the main arguments presented in the essay
- Restate the thesis statement and its significance
- Concluding thoughts on the role of technological innovation in addressing global warming and the need for continued efforts in harnessing innovation to combat global warming
Now all you need is to write a section for each of these points in the outline and you’ll have a proper essay that you’ll be proud to hand in.
Come Up with Facts and Information to Include
Need a little more help with your ChatGPT essay? Why not ask it for interesting facts to include? You need to double-check these, but they can provide inspiration to make your essay more interesting. It’s always a good idea to include your sources, so go ahead and ask ChatGPT to give you sources. It will provide you with everything you need.
Something to note is that if you’re looking at statistics, ChatGPT doesn’t connect to the internet to give you the latest information. However, you can use plugins to get internet connectivity and OpenAI is already working on releasing a public plugin that will do this for you.
Do a Spellcheck and Grammar Check
Before you send your essay off to the professor, it’s important to make sure it’s as perfect as possible. What better way than to ask ChatGPT to correct any spelling or grammatical errors? You may need to copy and paste in sections if the essay is too long, but this can be a great way to pick up any mistakes that you might otherwise miss.
Do make sure you read through the essay before submitting it, since even AI can make mistakes.
Create a Winning Title
You’re done everything and have written an incredible article, thanks to ChatGPT, but now you need a title. It can be tough to come up with a great, hard-hitting title, so you might want to turn to AI once more. Here are five titles ChatGPT came up with for the above example essay:
- “Innovating Our Way to a Cooler Planet: The Crucial Role of Technology in Tackling Global Warming”
- “From Ideas to Solutions: How Technological Innovation is Shaping the Fight Against Global Warming”
- “Powering the Future: The Transformative Role of Technological Innovation in Addressing Global Warming”
- “Breaking Barriers, Building Solutions: How Technological Innovation is Paving the Way to Combat Global Warming”
- “Driving Change: The Power of Technological Innovation in Mitigating Global Warming and Ensuring a Sustainable Future”
And just like that, you have a great title for your essay, which was made much easier to write with the help of AI. However, you won’t have any of the issues that are commonly found with AI-generated content.
Tips for Better ChatGPT Essays
If you’re determined to have ChatGPT write your essays for you, you need to be sure they are high quality. That really comes down to the prompts. Just asking the AI to write you an essay won’t usually have great results, at least, not good enough to call your own. Instead, you’ll want to generate an outline like we did earlier and then have it write each section.
Want the essay to sound like you? You can train the AI by adding a couple of your writings and telling it to follow that same style and attitude in the essay it writes. This makes it more realistic, too.
Another thing to try is to install the Chrome extension, AIPRM. Under the SEO section, it has options to humanize your articles. You can take an essay written by ChatGPT and have it humanized to help it pass AI filters. Keep in mind that this is almost always against school policy, so use at your own risk.
Finally, get really specific in your prompt. You need to have plenty of details in there to make sure the AI gives you what you want. The more detailed the prompt, the better. You may want to check out PromptBase to find great essay prompts that will help you get more realistic results.
There’s Nothing Wrong with Using Tools
ChatGPT should probably not be used to write entire essays, but it sure can be useful in helping you out. If you struggle with getting started, just having a decent outline to start with can be very reassuring. There’s no doubt that AI is changing the way the world works, so go ahead and make use of it yourself.