AI chatbots can now write essays for you. Naturally, teachers fret about students using AI to cheat. How can you really know if a student used AI to write their paper? You can’t, and that’s the whole point of AI – it sounds like a human. Given samples of your writing, it can even be trained to sound like you.
But I’m not worried about academic dishonesty. What I am worried about is this:
Students who use AI to write for them are outsourcing their thinking.
Writing Forces Thinking
In his book Wisdom Takes Work, Ryan Holiday shares his thoughts on the subject:
“Could you have artificial intelligence do it for you? Or a ghostwriter? Maybe – but it would defeat the purpose. We think as we write. Indeed, we cannot finish a sentence until we have carried the thought all the way through.”1
Many students mistakenly believe the purpose of writing is to sound fancy, when really the purpose of writing is clear communication. And clear communication requires clear thinking. As we write, our unfinished thoughts are forced into the daylight, where they either grow into something fully articulated or crumble in the face of scrutiny.
In the human mind, poor thinking often appears logically sound. We fool ourselves all the time. We’re betrayed by cognitive biases. We ignore contrary evidence. We gloss over gaps in our understanding and holes in our logic. But when we’re forced to articulate our thoughts on the page, we often see how they fall short.
This parallels what happens when a math student is forced to show their work on paper. Often, the process helps them move beyond the step at which they got stuck. Other times, seeing their work shows them where they went wrong in their head. Either way, writing improves their thinking.
Sometimes unclear writing reflects having a hard time putting a good thought into words. More often, it betrays a lack of clear thinking to begin with. So the main benefit of writing is that it forces you to become better at thinking. This is yet another reason why writing is the most important subject in school.
The Value of Editing
Holiday notes that editing our writing, whether on our own or with feedback from others, “is a kind of interrogation, a process by which we are refining and sharpening our thinking, a way to get our story straight.”1
It’s okay if you just start with whatever you have, even if the ideas are only half-formed. Try to put what you want to say on the page, even though it’s far from perfect. Return to it later. Read what you’ve written with a critical eye. Strive to make it clearer and more logical. Don’t be afraid to scrap a portion that doesn’t make sense.
The editing process mirrors the way wise people improve their thinking. They’re not afraid to critically examine their beliefs or test their ideas in the real world. They listen to what others have to say on the subject and refine their thinking when logic and evidence dictate. Editing your writing is a way to practice this essential skill.
The Value of Transcribing
You might think that copying quotes from a book onto the page would be a mindless activity of little value, but that’s not what I’ve found. Here’s Holiday again:
“On the page we see the pattern. Transcribing the passage or a quote, we get to feel the real genius and insight pass through our mind and our fingers, processing each word, weighing and understanding the wisdom. We see what we didn’t see before.”1
When I read good writing – particularly good nonfiction – I find my own thinking influenced by the author’s clear thinking. The exposure to their logic improves my own. Selecting and transcribing the best portions of their writing gives me another exposure, a chance to absorb their ideas more deeply.
Writing is Practice at Talking
We write to practice clear thinking and clear communication. This practice makes us better at not just writing, but talking – something AI can’t do for us.
Imagine a student who uses AI to fake their way through school, to create their resume, and to write a compelling cover letter. An unsuspecting employer invites them for an interview. Suddenly, the student is forced to talk in a way that’s clear and compelling, and they’ll surely fail. Their poor thinking will be laid bare in front of the interviewer, who will wonder how they looked so good on paper but fell so short in person.
Sometimes, when I’m tutoring, I write out the explanation I’m giving to the student as I’m saying it. Partly, this is done to model the note I’d like them to take. But it’s also a practice that forces me to slow down and explain the topic more clearly than I would just by speaking. The next time I teach it, however, I find that I’m much more confident explaining it off the cuff, without writing.
In my coaching practice, I often articulate concepts that I’ve written blogs about. My ability to give clear and concise advice in the moment comes directly from having written about it in the past.
Do the Work
So, should you let AI do your writing for you? Only if you want AI to also do your thinking for you.
The results would be akin to having your personal trainer lift all of your weights for you. Heavy weights will indeed be lifted, but you won’t get any stronger.
The next time you have to write something, and you’re tempted to take the AI shortcut, consider the long-term outcome you want. As with so much in life, doing it the hard way is the wise choice.
Treat all writing the way you would treat journaling. No one would have AI do their journaling for them because the whole point of the practice is to improve your own thinking and to process your own emotions.
Holiday concludes his chapter on writing by reminding us that even when we’re writing for someone else to read, we’re always writing for ourselves:
“It doesn’t matter if we publish, it doesn’t matter what the audience thinks, it was the doing that did the work. … We are writing to think right.”1
1Holiday, Ryan. Wisdom Takes Work: Learn. Apply. Repeat. Portfolio 2025.
Chris Loper has been working as a tutor and academic coach since 2014, racking up over 13,000 hours of experience supporting students.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the co-creator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
Chris writes the popular self-improvement blog Becoming Better, where he also offers habit coaching, helping busy adults with habit formation and productivity.
Chris’s most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, he published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA, where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.