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For those wondering if ChatGPT can write an essay, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
ChatGPT is the AI chatbot taking the internet by storm. A generative text AI, people have been pluming the depths of what this new technology can do since its release back in 2022. Ideas like can ChatGPT be used to write a CV, or write code, or even whether ChatGPT can teach you a language, only serve to prove the way this AI has ignited people’s imaginations. The latest idea is whether ChatGPT can write an essay.
Let’s get into it.
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Can ChatGPT write essays?
In short, yes. ChatGPT can technically be used to write an essay, but we would not recommend using it for anything more than as a structuring tool or assistant to your writing. Let’s break that down a bit.
Limitations
AI detectors
The first main limitation to using ChatGPT to write an essay is that, if you use it as more than an assistant or structuring tool, then you run the risk of being penalised for plagiarism. Turnitin and other AI detectors are becoming more common and more accurate and it is very likely if you are trying to use AI to write academic work that you will face penalisation for this.
Current events
Furthermore, ChatGPT does not have access to the internet unless used in conjunction with specific plugins. This means that ChatGPT only has access to the data it was trained on which has a cut off date of 2021. If you are attempting to write an essay on any event more recent than this or taking into account any critical work or study that was conducted after this time, ChatGPT will have no knowledge of it.
Accuracy
In addition to the above issues, ChatGPT is known to have accuracy issues, presenting false information as though it were fact. Due to the summarisation capability of ChatGPT it can be tempting to use it as an information recall tool, so much so that some people wondered if ChatGPT would replace Google Search. However, while accuracy was a key focus for OpenAI in developing GPT-4, ChatGPT still retains those accuracy issues. As a result, even if you are using ChatGPT as an essay writing assistant, we would recommend double checking any factual claims made by the chatbot before including them in your essay.
Prompts
A final limitation to take into consideration in this issue is the limited intuition of ChatGPT, unless otherwise specified, it might not include key features that you would need in your essay, for example quotes.
We asked ChatGPT to write us an essay based on the theme of love in Romeo and Juliet. Here’s an extract of what it came back with:
As you can see, ChatGPT did write us an essay, but it failed to include any quotes – a key feature of many academic essays. So we tried again, and this time we specified that we’d like “an essay on the theme of love in Romeo and Juliet using quotes and citing critical opinions.” Here’s an extract from its response.
To be fair to ChatGPT it did write us an essay on the theme of love in Romeo and Juliet, and it did use quotes and critical opinions. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really engage with any of the content it’s drawing on at the sort of level you would generally expect to see in a piece of academic writing, instead it just summarises what it’s found. Furthermore, the accuracy issue comes into play here too. Just because the citation sounds real, that does not mean it actually is. Again, we would recommend double checking the actual quote and citation before including them in any essay.
Benefits
So, does this mean you shouldn’t use ChatGPT to help you write an essay? Not necessarily. We found that ChatGPT was very good at providing ideas for points and helping to structure an essay. This could be a great starting point for many academic writers who aren’t sure where to start or find that they have all the content, they just don’t know where to start with formatting and optimising their structure.
Ideas
For essay writers unsure where to start, ChatGPT can provide a solid jumping off point to kickstart your ideas. To test this out, we asked ChatGPT “what are some points you could make in an essay about the theme of love in Romeo and Juliet.” Here’s an extract of what it came back to us with:
We would be wary of adhering too closely to any recommendations made by ChatGPT for the above-mentioned reasons. However, as a starting point for coming up with your main points, we thought ChatGPT fared pretty well.
Framework
ChatGPT could be used as an essay writing assistant by utilising it’s summary skills and asking it to provide a basic essay framework to build on. To test this out we asked ChatGPT to “provide [us] with an essay structure for an essay on the theme of love in Romeo and Juliet, focusing on female relationships and family relationships as well as romantic.” We gave it a few starting points for ideas to see how it would cope with all the factors. Here’s an extract from the result:
This seemed, generally speaking, pretty alright. Of course, there’s the minor issue that it’s told us to discuss the relationship between female servants and there aren’t any other female servants besides The Nurse so that doesn’t quite work. But, the rest of the structure seemed pretty solid. It definitely seems good enough to work as a basic framework for getting your essay started.
Final Word
At the end of the day, ChatGPT is a text generative AI trained on a vast dataset and can feasibly write a short essay on a variety of topics (don’t forget that ChatGPT has a word limit). However, we would not recommend using the chatbot when writing an essay for anything more than as a springboard for your own ideas, or for identifying a basic framework, due to the limitation listed in this article.
As developments in AI progress we’ll be keeping an eye on this and will update the page as new information comes in, so make sure to check back in periodically to stay up to date.
Frequently Asked Questions
As ChatGPT is such a widely used internet phenomena we know many people have questions that they want answers to. With that in mind, we’ve done our best here to answer some of your most pressing queries.
What is the ChatGPT dataset cut off date?
ChatGPT was trained on a dataset that reached until 2021.
Can ChatGPT reference academic articles?
While it should be able to reference any information within the dataset that it was trained on, ChatGPT has been known to provide inaccurate or false information and anyone using the chatbot should remember to double check any information provided against a verifiable source.
