Using AI to write your essay in 2026? You’ve probably heard one to many English teachers comment on the disastrous effect AI has on your thinking. However, one aspect of AI that many English teachers, and to that extent educators in general, overlook, is the execution or the exact method to use it.
Those excruciatingly long essays, essays that you most likely don’t want to do, yet need to because 30% of your grade depends on it.
In this post, I will go over exactly HOW to use AI, not only to ensure you don’t get caught by AI detectors, but to clarify your ideas, sharpen your diction (vocabulary), and generate sentences that are actually worth sharing (and make you sound sophisticated without the AI writing style).
You’ll also probably write more confidently as it’ll reduce the chance you get stuck and ensure you always have fresh ideas rolling on to the paper.
Even if you’re not using AI to write an essay, there are a ton of different ways to apply it. From drafting cold emails, to organizing your schedule, and even planning your daily routine, AI can be applied to a myriad of different scenarios. So, whether or not you’re writing a big article, you will be able to reap the benefits of the 20th century AI revolution 🙂
Use AI to Support Your Writing, Not as a Crutch
AI can improve your writing in so many ways, more ways than I can physically describe. However, in order to grow as a writer, you need to understand why your writing the way you are.
Specifically, AI can:
- Clarify the purpose of your essay
- Refine sentence structure and flow
- Tailor your essay to certain requirements or audiences
- Design writing methods to help your artistry
What many people don’t know about AI, is that its analytical abilities that allow it to generate text in the first place comes from pattern recognition. Every person’s writing style is different and what you want to do with that style is unique to you as well. Consequently, the more examples you feed it of your writing style, or “personality” as I should say, the better it will help you refine your craft.
For instance, let’s say I’m writing an essay on the importance of education. I then proceed to brainstorm various points to support my argument that education is invaluable to a student’s success. To actually synthesize my thoughts into a paragraph, I decide to ask ChatGPT to help me.
Let’s say I wrote down the following points below:
- Education can increase brain function
- The longer a student spends learning, the more friends they will make
- A better education can lead to more job opportunities in the future
I can then put these points into ChatGPT ask to synthesize the information to create a thesis statement (shown below).
As you can see, it gets the job done. You can have ChatGPT held you generate sentences that use your ideas.
However, I strongly advise against just letting ChatGPT, or any AI for that matter, engage in any sort of creative writing. If you don’t have any specific points, ideas, or structures for it follow, your writing will lose a lot of the specificity needed that will make your line of reasoning stronger.
As you can see in the example above, the thesis statement makes very broad claims, which is NOT what you want in an essay. What exact “opportunities” does education help expand? What does education help develop “critical thinking” for?
In our previous example, notice how we specifically mentioned JOB opportunities and improved BRAIN FUNCTION, which is the source of one’s critical thinking abilities.
The more specific you are, the better your essay will be as you can increase the sophistication of your diction and sentence flow.
When AI is used this way, it doesn’t replace your voice, rather, it gives you a language to react to. Ideas to build off of. It helps you streamline and clarify what you actually want to say. Most importantly, it gives you the freedom to make adjustments based on your own writing style.
Include Your Personal Voice
On the topic of authenticity, it is crucial that you write from your own perspective, using your own words. Sometimes, our writing may come off a bit casual and might not fit the tone of the essay. However, it sounds less robotic and more… real.
Ask if to analyze your writing. Are there any words that aren’t quite used correctly? Is there some issues with the flow of the essay? If you’re writing an argumentative essay, are there any logical fallacies?
Even better, ask it for the pros and cons and of your response. Tell it to point out exactly what part of your essay its commenting on and why its not as strong.
Here’s what works for me:
- ALWAYS, I mean always, ask for constructive criticisms and how you can improve your writing. Never ask it for what you did well as its very likely to hallucinate and give you a biased answer to make you happy and won’t accurately review the content of the essay.
- Ask it to identify your values, whether you state your ideas explcitly or implicitly, and finally, if it can identify your purpose. A good essay will be very clear and personal to the reader, so AI can be used if those patterns are easily recognizable.
- Give it a specific sentence you’e been struggling to write or finish. Have it brainstorm possible endings based on the context of the paragraph. It may be able to come up with some word choices that fit your writing style or some other writing choice that you may like.
Using these tips, you can ensure you always get feedback that will help, not deterioriate, your writing skills.
Use it to Edit and Refine Your Essay
Another powerful way to use AI in your writing process is during the editing stage. Once you’ve already written your ideas, AI can help refine your sentences without changing the core message you’re trying to communicate.
For example, you can paste a paragraph you wrote into an AI tool and ask it to check for grammatical errors, awkward phrasing, or punctuation mistakes. In many cases, AI-generated suggestions are grammatically correct and can help smooth out sentences that may feel clunky or unclear.
However, the real value comes from comparing the changes rather than blindly accepting them.
After receiving AI’s edited version, place your original paragraph next to the suggested one and look carefully at the differences. What words were changed? Did the sentence structure become simpler or more complex? Did certain phrases become more formal?
When you do this consistently, you’ll begin to notice patterns. Maybe you tend to write very long sentences that AI shortens for clarity. Maybe you overuse certain transition words, or your punctuation can sometimes interrupt the flow of a paragraph.
Identifying these patterns helps you become a stronger writer because you start recognizing your own habits.
At the same time, remember that not every AI suggestion should be accepted. Writing is a series of choices, and your voice matters. Sometimes AI will make a sentence technically “better,” but it may also make it sound overly generic or robotic. If a suggestion removes your personality or makes the sentence feel unnatural, it’s perfectly fine to ignore it.
Instead of treating AI like an automatic editor, think of it as a second set of eyes. It can point out possible improvements, but the final decision should always come from you.
Using AI this way allows you to sharpen your writing while still maintaining the individuality that makes your work interesting to read.
Summarize Your Main Essay Points
Another practical way to use AI in your writing process is to summarize your essay’s main points. When you’re writing research papers, book reports, or longer essays, AI can help identify the key ideas and present them in a shorter, easier-to-read format.
For example, you can paste a paragraph into an AI tool and ask it to summarize the main ideas. This can be helpful when you have a long or dense paragraph and need a quick explanation of what it’s saying.
However, the summary should only be a starting point, not a replacement for reading the full text.
After looking at the AI-generated summary, go back and read the original paragraph carefully. Pay attention to how the author builds their argument, what examples they use, and how their ideas develop. AI summaries often capture the general idea but may miss smaller details, evidence, or subtle points that are important to the argument.
Using summaries this way can also help you become a stronger reader. As you compare the summary with the original text, ask yourself a few questions. Did the summary include the most important ideas? Were any key points missing? Did the AI oversimplify parts of the argument?
Thinking about these questions helps you understand the structure of the writing more clearly.
In the end, AI summaries work best as a navigation tool. They can help you quickly understand what a paragraph or section is about, but deeper understanding still comes from reading carefully, thinking critically, and engaging with the author’s ideas.
A Final Note
AI is a powerful tool, but how you use it matters more than the tool itself. If you rely on it to do all your thinking, your writing won’t improve. But if you use it to support your ideas, check your work, and give helpful feedback, it can make you a much stronger, more sophisticated writer.
The goal isn’t to sound like AI. The goal is to sound like yourself, being authentic to your values, or in other words, ensuring your writing reflects your unique voice.
At the end of the day, your ideas, your voice, and your effort are what make your writing meaningful. AI should simply help you bring those ideas to life, not replace them.
To learn more about AI’s application to academic writing, see this article on Generative AI Use in Academia.
If you want to cite something written by AI (yes, there is a way to do this), then review this article on Citing AI Generated Text (Purdue University).
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