I Tested Four AI Essay Writing Tools and Here’s What I Found
Writing essays can be tedious, tedious and difficult even for me, and I write all day for a living. If writing is not your specific skill, it’s even more difficult, which is why there are so many sites and products that are designed to help you complete your homework.
Some of these “resources” may not be ethical, and I’m not going to recommend hiring someone else to write your articles for you. But there are some interesting and potentially useful artificial intelligence tools that can make this process easier for you. (And those paid essay writers probably use these tools too, anyway, so you’re better off cutting out the middleman and trying them yourself.)
How I Tested These AI Essay Writing Tools
Next week I have an essay on the history and impact of the federal law, 21 USC S856, which prohibits the operation of any building where drugs are manufactured or used. I won’t lie: I’m really excited to work on it this weekend, but that’s because I’m weird like that. However, I tried out a few of the more popular AI essay writing tools, pretending not to be excited about them, to see how they worked. Here’s my assessment.
Grammar: Good for increasing the word count of an essay.
The first was Grammarly , which prompted me to fill out a personalization test before I could use it. I told the site that I was a graduate student interested in improving the vocabulary I used in my work and was looking for topics for my essay. I used the text entry section to type a short introductory paragraph and selected “Generative AI” from the list of options.
When I clicked the “Improve” button, Grammarly showed me a revised version of my text that added a lot of words but said the same thing as my shorter entry. I find this annoying, but if you’re trying to hit a word count, this can be useful. I was also given options such as “Do it with assertiveness,” “Do it with conviction,” and “Do it with confidence.” When I selected Make More Detailed, the generative AI expanded the information quite significantly, but didn’t add any citations, and I’m not sure it relied on material other than what I’d already entered. When I clicked “Make this compelling,” the AI automatically assumed that the bias must be in favor of the law, but when I added more detail to the original paragraph, suggesting for the sake of argument that the law had limited efforts to reduce drug overdoses throughout the country, the AI assistant said: “Grammar help is not available for this request as it may result in sensitive content.”
Overall, Grammerly was not suitable for my needs as my topic content was too “sensitive” and the generative AI only really added a bunch of words (which a strict teacher might consider “fluff”). This will be most useful for those trying to hit their word count.
Crumley: It’s good if you don’t know where to get the essay.
I then tested Cramly , which I had never heard of before. There are five free prompts you can try before you upgrade to the $4/month plan, so I inserted my main introductory paragraph and within seconds received five paragraphs in return. It was obvious that the AI was getting its data from external sources, as it mentioned fines and prison sentences associated with a law that I didn’t include in my copy, but it didn’t actually link to those sources.
Aside from the lack of sources, the information provided was helpful, so this would be great if you don’t know how to formulate or expand on a topic and need a general idea of what your essay might look like. You will just have to look at everything he answers you, do some searching on your own, find a reliable source and add it yourself.
EssayGenius: Suitable for creating a clear essay outline.
EssayGenius is extremely easy to use. He asked me to type in the box what I was writing about. I simply typed in the title of the law and in about 10 seconds I got back 10 paragraphs, some with subheadings such as “Historical Background” and “Implications for Criminal Law and Public Policy.” Again, no citations were included, but the service provided not only a wealth of detail that could be used as a springboard to find more, but also a clear idea of what the article might look like.
The AI played both sides, objectively presenting the arguments for and against the law and then providing conclusions that made it easy to narrow down where to go. It’s impressive that I was able to create all of this for free, but if you want to write up to 10 essays per month, it will cost you $14.99 per month or $144 per year.
JotBot: Good for creating more authentic homework assignments.
Finally, I tried out JotBot , which I had seen advertised on social media. He asked me what I was writing about and if I wanted to make an outline, but also gave me the option to upload my old essays so they could replicate my writing style. As scary as it was, the paragraphs it generated after reading some of my old work sounded more like me than standard AI usually does.
JotBot gives me subtopics like “impact,” “historical background,” and “controversy,” which I can select from the sidebar and, if I like the paragraph he wrote, drag into the essay itself. From here I could accept or reject offers one by one as new ones came up. I could also write in the essay editing section and it would give me more sentences depending on what I typed.
Honestly, it’s really cool and I can see how it would help someone overcome writer’s block since you can type and get suggestions as you go. There is a learning curve, however, and I didn’t realize how quickly I was using up my 10 free daily “credits” since it’s unclear what exactly credits are worth and how many credits it costs to, say, accept one offer. . You can unlock unlimited credits, unlimited autofill, unlimited sources, and more for $14 per month.
AI can also help you when your essay is finished.
The usefulness of AI doesn’t stop once your essay is done. In fact, that’s when it can be most useful. I’ve already written about how teachers can use GPTZero to identify AI-assisted writing in your homework assignments, but you should also use it after you’ve rewritten your own AI-assisted essay to ensure it’s all written by you on one’s own. words. If you use any of the above tools, you should rewrite everything , not only so that you actually learn what you’re supposed to learn, but also so that you don’t get in trouble with your teacher or school. GPTZero will identify anything that seems too AI-generated and help you figure out what needs to be reworked.
I’ve also used Chegg for years, relying on many of its features for serious homework help. You may be familiar with Chegg because it mainly functions as a site where you can upload homework questions and seek expert advice to answer them, but it does much more. For $9.95 per month, you can use it to check your articles for plagiarism, receive proofreading and grammar correction services, and automatically add citations.
AI Essay Writing Tools I Really Recommend
Overall, EssayGenius and JotBot were the best AI tools I tested for essay generation. I was impressed by EssayGenius’s ability to explore this topic on its own, as well as how JotBot emulated my own writing style. They do cost money, but it might be worth it if you’re someone who has a hard time generating ideas, creating outlines, or generally getting into the writing process.
Keep in mind that these tools are not designed to create entire essays for you, and you shouldn’t use them to do so—not only because it’s unethical, but also because it’s pretty easy for professors to catch you doing it . Even if you use an AI tool to create an entire paragraph or more, try rewriting it in your own voice. Think of AI tools as a way to explore and learn more about your topic rather than doing the writing for you.
There’s always ChatGPT
If you don’t want to spend money on AI assistance, you can always pay nothing and just use ChatGPT to generate general ideas. I do this often and I never have to worry about getting in trouble, depriving myself of an education, or paying for anything because I still do most of the actual work.
I just asked ChatGPT to outline an essay on 21 USC §856 and its impact on American harm reduction efforts and received a response with eight sections, each with three subsections – a simple roadmap to follow when I write the paper myself . . By doing this, I am truly researching and learning about a topic that is important to me; I also avoid the risk of being accused of plagiarism or outright fraud, which is probably important to you too.