Freelance Content Writer, SEO Blogger, Ghostwriter – squareONE

It’s not about using it to create text that you can pass off as your writing but rather training the tool to create text that can be edited, re-written, and tweaked so that the piece is your own.

Photo by Ayla Verschueren on Unsplash

What I find interesting about the debate on AI writing tools and human text is that most people are missing the basic point. AI writing tools are limited in their performance based on what query or prompt you type in and what you do with the text they generate. Suppose you simply tell ChatGPT to write a 1500-word article on human writing versus ChatGPT writing. In that case, you will probably get a robotic AI-sounding piece that makes a few good points but is not argumentative or opinionated.

That has to come from you as a writer.

If you try to pass it off as your own, not only will it be flagged, but honestly, it will not offer your readers any constructive information. That is because ChatGPT uses sources from the internet to create text but offers no valuable critical analysis. That’s the most important part that many writers do not understand.

Critical analysis is what separates your writing from AI writing.

In addition to this, the following are three important things to remember when using AI to support your writing process:

Mundane Tasks

Let’s continue with our example article on ChatGPT vs. human writing. If we research the topic and come to a conclusion on what slant our article will lean towards (the critical analysis part), we may find that ChatGPT often offers inaccurate information regarding facts and gets website references wrong when it states statistics.

You can ask ChatGPT to give you three reasons why it does this, and then you can do a quick Google search to verify. By the way, ChatGPT does get facts wrong because it is not a real-time fact-checking verification tool but relies on pre-existing training knowledge and time-restricted information from the internet. So, it cannot cite verifiable resources for statistics or facts. But it could give you a fact that you could then Google and cross-check, which will also provide you with a verifiable online resource if the fact exists.

You get the point. The mundane tasks we often waste a lot of time doing can be streamlined with an AI tool like ChatGPT.

Automating Structure

Let’s take another example: Tables are great when writing articles on product comparisons. But they take a lot of time to create, right? Why not use ChatGPT to do it for you? Ask it to take the text you have written about two products and make a comparison table. Now, that is not only time-saving but your words are shortened and simply organized into a table, so there is no issue of plagiarism. This can be used for conclusions and introductory paragraphs as well. Merely paste your article text into the ChatGPT query box, ask it to create a conclusion or introductory paragraph in 100 or 150 words, and then edit to make it sound like you.

Researching with ChatGPT

Generating ideas is a bit of a Grey area regarding ChatGPT because of its factual accuracy, but if you ask very specific, detailed questions, you will get very detailed answers. This is where many writers get it wrong when typing prompts. Asking generic questions will get you generic answers, but being more specific can provide valuable information. Remember: the more detailed the question, the more chances you will get constructive information that you can use to make your point.

For example, a generic question for our article could be the five benefits of using ChatGPT vs. human writing. You will probably get an uninteresting answer. But what if you ask ChatGPT to tell you five unique ways that ChatGPT can be used as a supportive writing and learning tool when researching information for article writing? Now, you have more detailed information that you can tweak and edit to make it more personalized. Typing try again will give you more and different information than what was provided earlier, which can help when testing the tool’s knowledge base.

Disclaimer here: all ChatGPT information needs to be cross-checked for accuracy. Some writers may think this takes more time than doing the research, but you already do this when searching for information online because you can’t always believe everything you read on the World Wide Web. The same goes for ChatGPT. Becoming a good writer means being able to provide background and references to the information you are providing to your reader.

The Last Word

The best of both worlds is using your emotional intelligence as a writer and ChatGPT’s efficiency in structuring text and shortening research time. Knowing how to use it can reduce time spent on mundane tasks, allowing you to spend more time perfecting your writing.

Originally published for New Writers Welcome on Medium on February 11, 2025