No, artificial intelligence (AI) won’t replace you as a writer. Rather, it can be a powerful assistant when used properly to help improve your writing. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just into your first few articles, AI can help in the mechanical part of writing. In this guide, we’ll discuss the myriad ways you can add AI to your writing process.
The Unseen Challenges of AI in Writing: What to Watch Out For
AI is best utilized before and after writing. You can prompt it to organize your thoughts into a cohesive outline and, on the other end, edit your work. In most cases, the bulk of writing still rests on your shoulders.
You can use AI to check for errors and inconsistencies, eliminating the need to read and reread your work or even hire a writing service.
That’s not to say you can’t use AI in actual writing, but, relying on AI to write for you can be messy. For instance:
- As of this writing, AI still struggles to differentiate sarcasm from its literal meaning.
- AI only repurposes content it finds online; it does not provide new ideas. Hence, it is susceptible to indirect plagiarism.
- Data privacy is a concern as AI tools require access to your content.
- When prompted to be creative, AI can turn up trite writing. It is yet to match human creativity.
- AI uses large sets of data, which means any error in these sets can appear in your writing.
It’s best to use AI to enhance the mechanical aspects of your writing, not to replace the human touch. This rule goes to anyone, from those with an MFA creative writing online or traditional degree to non-writers writing something.
How AI Polishes Your Writing, Voice, and More
Here are the ways AI can boost writing:
1. Grammar checks
It’s easy to miss a dangling modifier there or a missing comma here. AI-powered tools like Grammarly and Word do the job of correcting grammatical errors. They can spot inconsistencies in syntax, punctuation, vocabulary and most other writing violations your English teacher frowns upon. More importantly, these tools will tell you why something is being corrected. You get a bonus: a grammar refresher course.
2. Sentence construction
AI helps fine-tune your sentences. With correct prompts, it can break running sentences, rearrange sentence structure for clarity or transform jumbled thoughts into coherent sentences. AI uses a combination of data analysis, pattern recognition, templates, and linguistic rules to do this job.
For example, if a user inputs “running late meet you soon,” an AI could restructure this as, “I’m running late, but I’ll meet you soon.” This way, the AI not only maintains readability but also adds a layer of professionalism and finesse to the writing.
3. Tone of voice
If you’re struggling to get the right voice in your writing, AI can get you going. As with most seasoned writers, they attained a voice by imitating others in the beginning. You can do the same but faster. For instance, if you lean towards a serious, struggling life narrative, you can prompt AI to use Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea as an anchor tone. On the other hand, using Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby for AI toning may result in melancholic scorn or something to that effect.
4. Vocabulary Enrichment
AI writing tools can suggest synonyms that best match your intent if you’re grappling for the right word. Essentially, you have in your hands synonyms pulled from large datasets of words and phrases in different contexts. For instance, if you write “I’m very happy” to mean a state of emotion beyond average happiness, prompt AI and it might suggest, “I’m ecstatic.” You get to use words in their precise context.
5. Style Improvement
You can ask AI to apply a specific style to your writing. It can be narrative, technical, academic, persuasive… you have a range of styles to practice on. As you keep churning out articles, patterns will emerge. AI uses them to personalize a style—your very own.
6. Rewriting Assistance
Sometimes, you can’t avoid to paraphrase. For example, when writing about something generally accepted as truth (“The earth revolves around the sun”). To avoid plagiarism, you need to rewrite it. AI can do this cumbersome work in a snap. You can even prompt AI to give you several paraphrased versions.
7. Content Personalization
You can also prompt AI to personalize content. Editors and copywriters worth their salt know the power of personalized messaging to drive leads. AI can help you craft, not just the right tone and style, but content that matches your audience’s preferences. Of course, you have to feed the AI tool with the right instructions. Remember, it’s garbage in, garbage out. So, make sure you understand your audience segments’ wants and needs, information that an AI tool will base its output on.
8. Scalable Content Generation
With AI taking care of the mechanical, cumbersome parts of writing, you can now churn out more articles in less time. That’s scaling without needing to hire more people. However, do not compromise quality over quantity. As with traditional publishing, place “checkpoints” at varying stages in your editorial assembly line to catch errors. The checkpoints can be reviewing the outline before writing, cross-referencing data in the article and proofreading the final draft.
9. Providing Interpretive Insights
When complex data overwhelms your wits, say, in technical writing, you can run to AI for help. You just input the relevant data and ask AI to interpret them. AI will deliver insights you may have missed, details you can now express clearly in your writing. You can even push the envelope and ask AI to visualize its analysis in tables or charts. AI helps summarize reports, too. In this way, you can digest volumes of studies faster.
10. Predictive Text and Contextual Suggestions
You’re familiar with predictive text when sending SMS or searching on Google. You can also find this feature in AI writing tools. Predictive text auto-completes your sentence using Natural Language Generation (NLG). It’s an advanced algorithm that, well, let’s just say it understands what you’re trying to say and gives you the words to say it. That’s efficiency.
Conclusion
No matter who you are—a blogger, a student, or a content creator—enhancing your writing style and voice is instrumental in making your work more impactful. AI writing tools are here to help just that, transforming your pieces from good to fantastic by polishing your writing and enhancing your unique voice.
It’s not about making it sound like it was written by a machine; it’s about making it the best version it can be of you. Leap today and let AI elevate your writing.