AI as Editor
Let’s explore how AI can assist with everything from improving grammar and clarity to helping you break through writer’s block when you’re feeling stuck. Think of it as a supportive editing tool that works alongside you, helping you organize your ideas and polish your work without losing your own voice!
Ethan Mollick, a business professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is well-known for his exploration of how GenAI will impact education, work, and daily life. In the video to the right, he explains how to use ChatGPT to improve your writing.
Through his websites One Useful Thing and More Useful Things, Ethan offers a wealth of resources, including a Prompt Library with pre-written prompts designed for use with GenAI models like ChatGPT, Bing/Copilot, Gemini, and Claude.
AI can be a great help when it comes to text editing, offering everything from fixing grammar mistakes to improving sentence flow and clarity. Whether you’re writing an essay, report, or email, AI tools can suggest edits that make your writing sound clearer and more polished.
Example
Original
“While using generative AI tools for content creation, the process sometimes felt inefficient because the tool generated outputs that were not aligned with our specific needs, which required us to spend additional time revising or rephrasing the content to fit our objectives, and this added unexpected delays to the project timeline.”
Prompt
“Edit this sentence to improve clarity, conciseness, and flow while preserving its original meaning.”
Edited
“Using generative AI tools for content creation occasionally felt inefficient. The tools often produced outputs misaligned with our needs, requiring additional time for revisions and rephrasing, which caused unexpected project delays.”
Notice how the edited version is more concise and easier to read.
Tools like Grammarly, Quillbot, and Hemingway Editor can help you catch grammar errors, refine awkward sentences, help paraphrase, and ensure your writing is clear and direct. These tools also offer features like style suggestions and readability checks, helping you strengthen your writing overall.
AI tools can make structural editing and organization much easier by helping you reorder content, clarify your main points, and ensure logical progression. For instance, if you’re writing a research paper and your points feel out of sequence, a AI tool can analyze the flow and suggest reorganization for better clarity and impact.
Example
Download this research paper on GenAI for Visualization [PDF] and then upload it into ChatGPT or Copilot with the following prompt .
Prompt
“Analyze the structure and flow of this research paper. Identify sections or paragraphs where ideas are unclear, redundant, or out of logical sequence. Suggest specific reorganization strategies to enhance clarity, coherence, and overall impact. Provide reasoning for your suggestions, referencing academic writing best practices where applicable.”
What do you think of the feedback?
AI tools like Notion AI or Grammarly can help with outlining and logical flow, while Sudowrite is great for creative writing. You might consider NotebookLM, which can analyze your uploaded documents to provide summaries and insights that help you refine the structure of your work. These tools not only suggest ways to refine your organization but also offer features like headings, summaries, and transitions to guide your revisions.
AI can act as a collaborative editor by providing constructive feedback on your writing, much like a peer reviewer or mentor. It can help identify areas for improvement, offer suggestions for better phrasing, and even pose questions to help you clarify your ideas.
Example
Original
Copy and paste the paragraph below into ChatGPT or Copilot along with the prompt that follows.
“Ethics in GenAI is a big deal because AI technology is growing fast, and people are using it more and more. One ethical issue is bias. AI systems are made by humans, and if the data used to train them is biased, the AI can be biased too. For example, if an AI program is trained with data that has mostly one kind of opinion, it might treat other opinions unfairly. This can cause problems in things like hiring, where an AI might favor one group of people over another. Another issue is privacy. AI systems collect a lot of data to work well, but sometimes they collect too much or use it in ways people didn’t agree to. This makes people worry about their personal information being shared or stolen.”
Prompt
“Act as a peer reviewer providing constructive feedback on the following piece of writing. Focus on clarity, coherence, grammar, and the logical flow of ideas. Highlight strengths, identify areas for improvement, and suggest actionable revisions. Maintain a supportive and professional tone, offering specific examples where possible to guide the me in refining my work. After providing feedback, allow me to ask questions for clarification or further guidance, and respond to my questions in a detailed and helpful manner.”
AI can assist you in generating alternative ideas and acting as a creative editor by offering fresh perspectives, rephrased sentences, and innovative concepts. It analyzes the content, identifies areas that could benefit from a different approach, and provides suggestions to enhance creativity, clarity, and impact. This is particularly useful for brainstorming, overcoming writer’s block, or refining drafts.
Example
Original
“Deepfakes, powered by advancements in generative AI (GenAI), are transforming digital media but pose significant ethical and societal challenges that demand urgent attention. GenAI enables the creation of highly realistic altered videos, images, and audio, which can spread misinformation by crafting convincing yet false narratives. This capability threatens to manipulate public opinion, disrupt elections, and erode trust in reliable sources. Another major concern is privacy, as GenAI-driven deepfakes can replicate individuals’ likenesses without consent, leading to exploitation, harassment, or reputational damage. These challenges highlight the need for stringent regulations and innovative solutions to manage the risks of deepfakes while preserving accountability and ethical standards in the use of GenAI.”
Prompt
“Provide three alternative ways to frame the main argument of the following paragraph to make it more engaging.”
Output
Three Alternative Framings
- “In a world increasingly shaped by digital innovation, deepfakes represent a groundbreaking yet troubling application of generative AI (GenAI). While their potential to revolutionize media creation is undeniable, the ethical dilemmas they pose—ranging from privacy violations to the spread of misinformation—demand immediate and thoughtful intervention.”
- “The rise of deepfakes, driven by cutting-edge generative AI (GenAI), is challenging our ability to trust what we see and hear in digital media. These hyper-realistic forgeries threaten privacy, amplify misinformation, and erode public trust, underscoring the urgent need for ethical oversight and technological safeguards.”
- “Generative AI (GenAI) has unlocked new possibilities in media creation through deepfakes, but it has also unleashed a host of ethical challenges. From crafting convincing falsehoods that mislead the public to exploiting individuals’ identities without their consent, deepfakes are a powerful reminder of the need for responsible innovation and regulation.”
Additional prompts to try
- “Suggest creative and concise titles for this essay based on its main themes.”
- “Rewrite this section with a more conversational and engaging tone while maintaining its original meaning.”