Premise

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: if AI can just generate a paper based on whatever you tell it, then why not just let it do that for you? And while we’re exposing megafauna, let’s face this one too: few of us consider ourselves to be “great writers,” and even fewer want to be. So then why torture ourselves with lessons, tests, and revisions on this subject—all of which, again, a program can simply skip over in the blink of an eye and give us a seemingly tenable final product?

To be honest, these are very fair questions. Life is busy, and it’s sometimes hard to see the purpose of putting yourself through the rigor of trial and error that comes with learning all the skills that “good” writing requires—let alone knowing when, how, and why to implement various techniques, strategies, and sentence-level decisions. Why should a student studying to become a doctor, or a nuclear engineer, or a marine biologist bother themselves with content so seemingly outside their prospective specialization?

But that’s just it; there are plenty of tangible skills that “good” writing (and more importantly, “good” thinking and communication) can bring to anyone focused in these aforementioned professions (not to mention the further personal and interpersonal benefits). So what are they, and why are they worth your time, energy, and interest?

Examples

We could go into a whole long definition about what exactly AI is (and maybe we should), but let’s start simple and just say that when we talk about “AI generated writing,” we’re talking about a program that can replicate human responses based on various prompts and by drawing upon an increasingly complex library of source material. But any AI program worth its weight in bits will tell you that it’s only that: replication software. It has no original thought, perspectives, or motivations. Even if it seems like it does, that’s just the programming designed to simulate it acting more “human.”

This isn’t a “good” or “bad” thing; it’s just the difference between a program creating a piece of written communication and you doing so. So why should the latter be the one doing the work rather than the former?

Professional Development

Let’s start with a visible purpose for learning good writing skills: professional development. This is actually a great example to start with, because when most people hear about a topic like this, they think “jobs,” and when they think about how to get a job, they think applications, and when they think about applications, they think about cover letters. Oh yeah, those neatly scripted single-page documents that seem prime content for an AI program to generate for you!

So then why in the world would you consider writing your own cover letter? Well, let’s paint a scenario:

You finally get an interview for your dream job. You’re excited, but also understandably nervous for what will be the most important meeting of your young life with some of the company’s top executives. But you’re prepared, with some smart new clothes, a fresh haircut, and even printed copies of your resume—just in case there’s issues with the Wi-Fi at the meeting. Smart!

Oh, and of course you also have copies of *your* cover letter. We put *your* in asterisks because you didn’t actually write it yourself, of course. After all, who has the time to write their own cover letter? At least you glanced over it after you had that program generate it for you based on your resume and the job description. It seemed really well-written; definitely better than anything you could’ve ever come up with.

And so you get to your interview. Your heart seemingly skips a beat when you enter the conference room to the sight of three suited inquisitors. But they greet you warmly, and even smile, and the first couple of questions go great. They seem to like your experience (as limited as it is). And most importantly, they seem to like you. Heck, the conversation is so natural and winding that you learn that some of you even watch some of the same Twitch streamers. Who could’ve guessed!

But then they turn to your cover letter: “Why did you write this? Can you tell us more about that? What do you mean by [they then reference cover letter sentence-level details]?” Suddenly, your heart is racing. Did the room just get warmer? You’re sweating now. Why did you write this detail? And why in the world did you describe it that way? Of course, you didn’t write those details, and you didn’t describe any of them either. The program told you that this would sound “professional.” But it’s not you; and worse of all, you’re not even entirely sure why.

But you stumble through your answers. It’s hard to tell if they’re satisfied as they mark down their notes and tell you with a neutral smile, “We’ll get back to you soon.” And so you leave, hoping that your explanations made sense. At least such explanations are, after all, yours.

This is obviously just one example. But now imagine applying many of the considerations within this scenario to other aspects of the professional world. Obviously, there’s a time, place, and purpose for templates (maybe another article topic worth exploring this idea!), but ultimately they’re just that: starting points to give you a launch pad from which to explore, express, and relate your own ideas and reflections.

Imagine a similar situation where you did get that dream job like the one interviewed for in the example above, but now that you work there, your boss wants you to present a report to the staff about the progress of a group project, of which you are the lead team member. Of course, you can explore templates for organizing and detailing the information that you want to present, but only you know the best way to decide not just these larger macro-decisions, but also the sentence-level ones—whether via the text displayed on a PowerPoint, or your note cards where you have to decide what to describe more specifically for when you’ll explain each slide in front of another room full of same-suited-bosses.

Again, these examples themselves have a ton of further nuanced elements for consideration. But rest assured that we’re just identifying them here to establish that there’s a massive benefit to knowing the skills behind constructing those documents and forms of communications yourself as opposed to just outsourcing it all to the robots.

Cognitive Development and Transferrable Skills

The section above leads us to the more innate consideration of how thinking about “good” writing has very real cognitive developmental impacts—as well as how the tools gained along the way act as transferable skills for other situations.

Consider the example of outlining. Blah, who likes it? Well, some people maybe. But regardless, if it’s taught well, then the ideas behind when, how, and why to organize various types of materials (as well as how to process it for your own understanding, reflection, and relation of it to audiences) obviously sounds like an invaluable skill. Just like I tell my classes, “If outlining isn’t helping you, then it’s not worth your time.” Of course the question then is what is the reason for it not working, but that’s just something to figure out rather than just blowing the whole thing up.

Just take this example from a former student who went on to Berkley Law before becoming a lawyer. He said this about his college freshman writing composition course:

“While I went on to take many classes that were necessary for my field, introduction to college writing was by far the most important foundationally for me to succeed in these other courses—even at the day-to-day level of work duties. Tools like outline templates really helped me think about how and why to organize and process information, as well as delegate tasks, even today as a lawyer. Even if I obviously don’t use a specific outline template most days, the thoughts behind their steps of usage have proven invaluably applicable to my work in other ways.”

This sounds like a perfect explanation of how any effective learning of writing skills should really involve thinking about how the ideas behind these lessons can be applied in various further and expanding capacities. More complicated than just typing, “Robot, organize for me.” But potentially much more rewarding too.

Refined Communication

Ever find yourself in an argument, debate, or even just a discussion where you were frustrated with trying to pick the “right” words to express yourself? If so, you’re not alone, and learning more about writing will absolutely help you to feel less daunted by these situations.

Keep in mind that when we say that writing can help with “refined communication,” we don’t necessarily mean that it will instill you with the superpower of being able to hurl overly fancy words out there in order to impress your opponents into submission. Maybe you’ll be able to do that too, if you want. But mainly, you’ll be able to more accurately express how you really feel, what you’re really trying to explain, and even why your arguments are worth greater consideration than they otherwise might.

If you haven’t already noticed, these examples also serve to highlight the benefits of why bothering to learn writing are related to one another. And so this last category is sort of a culmination of much of what we’ve said already. Again, it’s not about using fancy words superciliously in order to impress those around you; it’s about having developed the aforementioned connections and modes of processing in your own mind—and then out into the world for others to absorb. Sure, robots can do that for you, but then that’s really not you doing much of anything. And worse, you’re missing out on these tools that can help your personal and professional development like we’ve said—in all sorts of ways both obvious and subtle.

Further Considerations

• In all honestly, AI writing is sometimes “better” purely human-generated context—but this assessment depends largely upon your metrics (i.e., how you’re assessing the work). When purpose, individuality, and assertion of self-relating expression come into consideration, AI inherently fails, since, well, it’s only simulating the appearance of being a person.
• AI doesn’t necessarily generate “good” papers. And in fact, they often set you up for failure of advancing specific tasks. This is because while an AI program might be pretty good at producing a generic rhetorical analysis paper, for example, there’s usually a ton of specific considerations for such an assignment that they’re far less adept at emulating. How do I know this? Because I’ve tested it myself with my assignment prompts. And even if they spit out what I might objectively consider as a “C” grade passing draft, you’re far less likely to be able to continue to refine such a work based on my suggestions than if you had at least tried to understand and write the paper yourself. It would be tantamount to me handing you back one of your classmates’ works and saying, “Okay, it’s a ‘C’ grade, good luck fixing it.” And let’s not forget the fact that submitting an AI generated paper is ground for failing a course, of course—or worse.
• The real “problem” with AI writing is that we really haven’t figured out how to use it with any sort of consistent guidelines in mind. This is largely because it’s not only such a new development in modern communication, but still a fastly evolving one with many variations on what we even mean by the terms involved. But just like the calculator didn’t eliminate the field of mathematics, neither should AI writing diminish the purpose of learning writing. On the contrary, distinguishing ourselves from mass-generated content is probably more important now than ever.
• We’re probably still somewhere on the path to figuring out how to use AI writing as a tool—rather than something to outsource all our work to, or as a reason to destroy all the robots before they destroy us. In fact, that’s probably, ultimately, how AI writing will be used. In this sense, working with an instructor who can help guide you, for example, with analyzing and considering why a grammar checker might suggest “improving” your work with one fancy word as opposed to another. We say “improving” because this distinction can often be subjective. I.e., language is largely preferential.