AI and Writing

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AI and Writing is a short introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and its emerging role in the university classroom. Designed as a supplementary text for composition and writing courses, the book explores the rapid evolution of GenAI and the many unsettled questions about its utility.

Sid Dobrin provides a roadmap for students and instructors who wish to talk about programs such as ChatGPT but don’t know how to begin. Writing prompts, discussion questions, and provocative short readings guide students in their consideration and use of GenAI programs, with a focus on the pragmatic: Can these programs can be used ethically in writing? What tasks might they work well for? Where do they fall short? Exercises covering the most commonly taught modes of composition make the book an ideal choice for any instructor who wishes to integrate coverage of GenAI into their undergraduate writing classroom.

Contents

I. Introduction: ChatGPT and the Generative Artificial Intelligence Surge

• Automated Writing: It’s not Really New
• History of Writing Technologies and Cultural Panic

II. What is Generative AI? (And for that matter, what is AI?)

• The Myths of Artificial Intelligence
• Artificial Intelligence Briefly Defined
• Generative Artificial Intelligence Briefly Defined
• How Does Generative Artificial Intelligence Work?
• What are our Assumptions and Expectations about GenAI?

III. Generative AI and Academic Integrity (as well as professional, civic, and personal integrity)

• Generative AI and Integrity
• The Plagiarism Problem
• Spaces of Judgement

IV. What is an Author?

• Generative AI and the Idea of Authorship
• Where is My Writing?
• Writing with Algorithms
• Does generative AI “Write”?

V. The Places of Generative AI Writing

• Academic
• Professional
• Civic
• Personal

VI. Generative AI and Writing Processes

• Generative AI and Invention
• Generative AI and Drafting
• Generative AI and Revision

VII. Generative AI and Creativity

• What is Art?
• What is original?
• Visual Rhetoric and GenAI
• Generative AI and Multimodal Writing

VIII. Generative AI Best Practices

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Sidney I. Dobrin is Professor and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Florida, and for ten years directed its writing program. He is the Founding Director of the Trace Innovation Initiative, serves as a Digital Thought Leader for Adobe, and is a member of the Florida Institute for National Security, which is part of the University of Florida’s Artificial Intelligence Initiative. Dobrin is the author and editor of numerous books and articles about writing, technology, and ecology.

He is available to consult with post-secondary institutions about generative AI, including policy development, curricula, and the development of faculty training programs. Please contact him for further information.

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A free 30-page PDF booklet on the topic of AI and higher education is also available.