3 Quick Ways to Spot AI-Generated Content in the Classroom

You think that assignment might be written by AI, but you're not quite sure. With AI tools now more advanced and accessible than ever, the risk of students using them in unsanctioned ways for their work has suddenly become much higher. Consequently, gauging what is (and what isn’t) AI-generated content is becoming a new skill that educators have to master, even if you want to adopt AI use in your classroom. 

Students being resourceful by using AI should not be grounds for academic punishment; but educators need ways to understand just how often and how much work AI is doing on behalf of their students.

Knowing what to look for, and being able to use AI detection tools effectively, can make a huge difference. By understanding the text patterns and structures that AI tends to produce, and knowing where to turn for a reliable and user-friendly detection method, educators can more easily figure out how to tell what is authentic work.  

Recognizing Stylistic Indicators of AI-generated Writing

When it comes to AI content, there are typically some obvious signs to watch out for that reveal whether a machine or a human has generated the text. It comes down to the work, or the writing, not feeling quite “human.” Even as AI improves, most free and cheap models catered to students tend to produce work that is more “obvious,” and popular attempts to bypass digital detection often make it easier, not harder, for you as a trained educator to spot abnormalities.

Specifically, these are the  most obvious signs that a work might have been generated by an AI tool: 

Repetitive Patterns in Text

Writing as humans means we tend to mix and match our language, with a rhythm that isn’t identical to someone else. In AI-generated writing, the text patterns can get overwhelmingly repetitive. The same types of sentences tend to get strung together, and AI tends to use similar phrases – again, and again, and again. The result can feel like reading the same point but expressed in a lot of different ways without much variation or flow. 

Formulaic Sentence Structures

Humans tend to write with a mixture of long and short sentences. Usually, there’s a varied structure throughout their work. However, with AI text, even with the right prompting, there can be a rigid and formulaic style. If it feels too flawless or predictable – like there’s an eerily consistent flow without any breaks in style – that can be a red flag that it’s been AI-generated.

Monotonous Tone

Human writing tends to have an inherent sense of voice, even if the assignment is formal or the piece is a highly academic one. Meanwhile, AI-generated writing can feel quite flat, and completely lacking in warmth or distinctiveness. With such a monotonous tone, the text can read as if it has been stripped of its emotional energy and any personality whatsoever.

Atypical Voice or Stylistic Choices

As a contrast, sometimes people attempt to bypass AI detection by asking ChatGPT to write in the style, voice, or tone of a specific author. But this tactic, if you know your students well, will almost certainly raise flags. If your student suddenly starts turning in work that sounds like a New Yorker journalist or a Nobel laureate, you may want to take a second look and compare their work to their in-class or past assignments.

Spotting the Lack of Personal Touch in AI-Generated Work

Another obvious mark of AI writing is a total absence of a personal touch or imperfections. When students write, they ideally include original perspectives, examples that are unique to their own life, or insights that are theirs alone. If there aren’t any marks of imperfection at all, that could also be a warning sign. Here’s how to spot the difference. 

Look out for Zero Typos

Work that has absolutely flawless grammar and zero typos can actually be suspicious. This is especially true if that particular student’s work isn’t typically this perfect. AI often generates impeccably clean copy, which lacks the small errors that can be expected when humans write – such as minor grammatical inconsistencies. 

Generic Examples vs. Real-World Detail

A suspicious indicator of AI-generated content is vague examples that could be slotted in almost anywhere. The key word here is cookie-cutter: AI content tends to be vague and lacking in specificity, especially for recent events. If all the examples being used are one-size-fits-all, and there aren’t any insights or references to real-life situations that happened either to the person or to contemporary news, this can be a sign that AI has been used. 

Lack of subject matter expertise

AI can spit out lots of words very, very quickly – but it tends to lack genuine subject matter expertise. Watch out for writing that only touches the surface of a topic or seems like it’s trying to sound more insightful without containing much originality. Students who actually understand what they are writing about will tend to have nuanced insights, while AI struggles to capture this depth.  

Best Practices for Educators

AI isn’t going anywhere – and in the 21st century, helping students remember the value of critical thinking and integrity has become as important as imparting the knowledge content itself. These are some ways educators can set up their students for success in tomorrow’s world. 

Don’t punish, discuss

Suspecting AI or getting a positive result should not automatically result in academic punishment. If you receive a positive AI detection, think about taking these steps to work with students constructively: first, ask them to demonstrate their understanding in a controlled environment (like an in-person assessment or an editor with an edit history feature). You can also ask for drafts, revision notes, or brainstorming documents. Crucially, see if there is a history of AI-generated text in the student's work – as it’s better to be on the lookout for a long-term pattern of AI use, not just a single instance, to gauge whether the student is using AI.

Training Students on Academic Integrity

Starting an open dialogue around the ethics of AI can help students see these tools with a more clear-eyed perspective, as opposed to seeing them as shortcuts to simply ticking the box of getting their work done. Show students that AI can be unparalleled when it comes to brainstorming while making it clear that relying on it too much puts them at risk of crossing acceptable lines of academic integrity and committing common types of plagiarism.  

Creating Clear Guidelines for Assignments

Clarity has never been more important when it comes to using AI in assignments, though this can understandably be a challenging area for educators as it is still such a recent development. Articulating your expectations for acceptable AI use means that students have boundaries about what is and what isn’t okay when it comes to using AI tools. Guidelines can help students explore AI responsibly without veering into plagiarism territory. 

Using an AI detection tool for further insight 

Besides using your own discernment, it’s helpful to get to know the AI detection tools that can give you a reliable “second opinion” on whether or not a piece was generated by AI. This can support or negate concerns you might have about a piece of work that differs from what a student usually submits.Note: AI detection does not work the same as traditional plagiarism detection: there’s currently no “smoking gun” or definitive proof of AI usage, unlike a copied source. In an ideal world, even definitive results from AI detection should not be used to penalize students but rather to start a dialogue about originality and academic integrity. 

How GPTZero Works: A Quick Guide for Educators

GPTZero has quickly become a favorite tool for teachers (here’s more on how it works). We’re here to help educators with reliable, advanced accuracy when it comes to detecting AI-generated content—and independent benchmarking shows that GPTZero’s Advanced Scan is leading the way in precision.

What sets us apart is our layered approach: our tool uses seven different components to process text and identify if it was written by AI. This works together to produce predictions that are as accurate as possible, so educators can feel confident in the results.

Additional Tools to Detect AI Writing

Besides GPTZero, there are other tools such as Turnitin’s AI-writing detector. The key thing to remember is that no single tool is automatically foolproof – instead, these tools are ideally acting as support to your own observations. 

After all, there’s a difference between using AI as a tool for coming up with different ideas, as opposed to using it for plagiarism. AI detection tools can reinforce the distinction between taking inspiration from AI as opposed to committing plagiarism. 

Keeping Integrity Core to Learning

As AI develops in importance as an area, so too will the value of academic integrity. Demonizing all AI technology and shutting students off completely from using it will not help them in the long run, as AI is only set to become more embedded within the educational landscape. 

Becoming deliberately skilled at spotting the nuances of AI-generated writing, understanding which AI detection tools to use, and setting transparent guidelines around AI use in the classroom, will help guide students towards using AI as a tool that can exercise (as opposed to replace) their intellectual growth.