Drafting with AI Assistance
Your first draft should be YOURS. Use AI to get unstuck — not to generate text for you.
~25 minutes- Claude open in another tab (claude.ai)
- Your outline from Module 4 (or any paper you’re currently writing)
- A place to write — Google Docs, Word, Notes, anything
Goal: Write at least one paragraph entirely in your own words, then use AI to help you improve it — not replace it.
The hardest part of writing is the blank page. But the solution is not to let AI fill it for you.
Here’s the problem with asking Claude to write your draft: you end up with Claude’s words, Claude’s sentence structures, Claude’s transitions, and zero of the actual thinking that made your argument yours. When you go back to revise, you’re revising someone else’s work. And your professor can usually tell.
Permission to write badly: Your first draft is not supposed to be good. It’s supposed to exist. “Messy first draft” is a real strategy that professional writers use. Get your ideas out; make them better in revision.
The “just talk it out” technique: If you can’t write a paragraph, try saying it out loud first. Explain your argument out loud as if you were telling a friend. Then write down what you just said. This is often easier than staring at the page.
How to use AI when you’re stuck mid-paragraph: Not by asking Claude to write the paragraph. Instead, describe what you’re trying to say and ask Claude to ask you questions. You answer the questions. Then write the paragraph from your own answers.
Avoiding “AI voice”: AI writing has patterns that professors recognize: overly formal phrasing, excessive hedging (“it is important to note that”), heavy use of bullet points in prose, no personal specificity, and transitions that feel formulaic (“furthermore,” “in conclusion,” “it is evident that”). If your paper sounds like a press release, it might have too much AI in it.
Prompt 1 — Talk it out (AI asks you questions, YOU write the paragraph):
After Claude asks questions, answer them in writing. Then use your answers to write the paragraph. This process forces clarity that AI-generated text can’t provide.
Prompt 2 — Get unstuck without letting AI write for you:
You pick one of the three directions. You write it. Claude widened your options — you made the decision.
Prompt 3 — Simplify a complex idea you’re struggling to explain:
Once you understand it clearly, rewrite the explanation in your own voice. Claude’s explanation is a scaffold, not a finished product.
⚠️ Important: On Copying AI Responses
If you paste a Claude response directly into your paper, that’s academic dishonesty — even if your professor doesn’t catch it right away. It’s also bad strategy: AI writing sounds like AI writing. Your professor knows your voice from earlier assignments, emails, and class participation. A sudden shift to polished, formal, perfectly structured prose is noticeable. Beyond the risk of getting caught, you miss the actual learning that comes from wrestling with your own ideas on the page. That learning is what you’re paying tuition for.
Task: Write one paragraph entirely on your own. Then use AI to help you see it more clearly.
- Open your outline or paper. Pick one body paragraph you need to write.
- Write the paragraph yourself — messy is fine. Don’t open Claude yet.
- Once you have a rough paragraph, use Prompt 1 with your notes/rough version.
- Answer Claude’s 3 questions in writing.
- Revise your paragraph based on YOUR answers to those questions.
Notice: Claude asked the questions. You answered them. Your paragraph improved because of YOUR thinking, not because Claude wrote for you. That’s the model.
Writing badly on purpose is actually a skill. Professional writers call it “shitty first drafts” (Anne Lamott’s term). The goal of a first draft is not good sentences — it’s to think out loud on the page.
Next time you’re staring at a blank page, tell yourself: “I’m allowed to write terrible sentences right now. I just need to get the idea down.”
2 minutes. Step away. Come back for the takeaways.
- Your first draft should be written by you, not AI. Use AI to get unstuck, not to generate prose.
- Prompt AI to ask you questions, then write from your own answers — this is the core technique.
- AI voice is recognizable to professors: formulaic, over-hedged, impersonal, no specificity.
- Pasting AI text into your paper is academic dishonesty and a bad learning strategy.
- Writing badly first is a legitimate strategy. Revision is where good writing actually happens.