scholarship essay writer ai

scholarship essay writer ai

The Impact of AI in Scholarship Essay Writing

1. Introduction

AI contains many definitions from various perspectives. Weak AI (named Narrow AI also) states that AI is a computer system that is able to perform coherently on a specific task rather than a human being, while Strong AI (General AI) states that AI is a computer system that is able to mimic fully human reasoning. Now, AI has been utilized extensively in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP). According to Chomsky, NLP is related to the competence of speaking and understanding language. Purposes of AI utilization is to simplify a complex language such as translation and summarizing, and also to perform analysis toward certain language. In essay writing, NLP can be used for grammar and spelling checking, choice of words, and plagiarism checking. This will burden the writer no more in editing and rewriting the essay because the essay can be edited during the writing process. With the same token, AI also can simplify the thesis making and analysis, since there is an AI that is able to search for several papers and then conclude it. Though sometimes the result is not satisfying, these are steps leading to an easier way in writing essay.

Essay writing is an essential part of the learning process. Writing an essay incorporates many things, among others are brainstorming into critical matter, formulating the ideas, and communicating with the reader. As time goes by, these processes may change due to technological development. These days, Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes a phenomenon. AI likely will affect to many aspects of human life, including scholarship essay writing. AI can have a positive or negative impact on essay writing. This essay will discuss about the influence of AI to scholarship essay writing, start from the positive, and then the negative influence.

2. Advantages of AI in Scholarship Essay Writing

Having a scholarship essay written by a machine may offer a substantial advantage to both the scholarship applicant and the committees awarding the scholarship. Computers, by their very nature, are objective. They will always produce the same result when given the same input. An applicant may receive several opinions on how to prepare for the essay in question. Some may tell the applicant to simply be himself, while others may suggest researching extensively and organizing a well-thought-out plan to write the essay. The opinions from various people could very well influence the applicant to change his approach several times. With ideas on how to write the essay constantly changing, the applicant may become frustrated when the end result is still not what was expected. An AI program can be thought of as an unbiased coach, always giving the same lesson when asked a similar question. This paper will examine several ways that AI can aid in the writing of a scholarship essay. While there are both pros and cons to having a program help with the essay, we will focus on the advantages that such a program can bring, such as suggesting a path to reach a desired result, generating an outline, and providing feedback until a final essay is achieved.

3. Ethical Considerations in AI Scholarship Essay Writing

Scholars should have their details regarded objectively; that is, the deciding factor on whether their book or journal article is accepted in a university or institute should depend on the quality of the research and the clarity of expression. Under these circumstances, it is evident that an essay writing competition using AI will never be as just as one that involves human decision-making. In addition, AI has great potential in ‘boosting’ the communication of scholars across the world by providing a means for translation of documents from one language to another. This boost is under no circumstances just, as it values an increase in communication above the learning of foreign languages and the cultural understanding that accompanies this—a dangerous tradeoff. Finally, translation by AI of a student’s own essay into another language could provide an unfair advantage to students who use it, as these services are likely to be unmonitored in the context of an essay writing competition. Artificial intelligence capabilities will continue to steadily increase and it is likely that AI will become a tool utilized by students and scholars at many levels in the future. As we have argued, there are many potential disadvantages and ethical dilemmas to use of AI in essay writing competitions, relative to the limited benefits. It is therefore our conclusion that AI should not be used to facilitate essay writing competition tasks at any level in scholarship. This does not imply a luddite-like rejection of technology. Rather, it is a decision to use wisdom and discretion in deciding where and how to employ technological resources in ways that are conducive to the maintenance of valuable skills and knowledge.

4. Limitations and Challenges of AI in Scholarship Essay Writing

Without disputing the effectiveness of AI in providing instant feedback to students, we must question the quality of the computer-generated score. A study published by Burstein in the “Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment” compares the accuracy of the e-rater grammar checker to human graders. The study concludes that the grammar checker is useful for identifying errors, but provides little feedback to the writer, and subsequently awards the same score regardless of the essay’s overall quality. This offers no benefit to the student, who will only learn to identify mistakes rather than to write a better essay. Stephen P. Lepell, author of “The New Literacy: Technology and Writing Assessment”, goes as far as to argue that this form of assessment is more beneficial to the teacher than the student, as it decreases the amount of time instructors spend grading papers. An additional problem with AI is the lack of understanding for non-native speakers of English. Because these programs are largely based on similar algorithms to internet search engines, they often favor essays that are written in complex, high vocabulary English. An English language learner who writes high-level content that is peppered with grammatical errors may receive a lower grade than a native speaker who writes an essay of a lower cognitive standard. This may be detrimental to these students, who would benefit from the feedback, but are led to believe that their writing skills are below par.

5. Conclusion

Hence, with the encroachment of AI in scholarship essay writing, the way students approach essays will change. An increasing number of essay topics will be linked to AI. To write an essay on the aforementioned topic may require the writer to have a certain level of understanding about AI to appreciate the essay topic. AI might also be used to coach students on the way to write an essay by analyzing the way the student writes an essay. This could be done by comparing the student’s essay to a high-quality model essay on the same topic. The AI system would give feedback to the student on ways to improve the essay to be more like the model essay. This method of teaching could be valuable as the student can use these tips to apply to future essays. 20 years ago, next to no one had used a computer to write essays. Now it is common for a student to type an essay and print a copy for a high school assignment. In this digital age, it is foreseeable that the next generation of students will not write an essay but simply speak to a computer. This notion is not at all far-fetched. With the rate at which voice-to-text data entry is being developed, there could very well be a future in which a student speaks an essay into an AI system and receives feedback on the spot. AI may also be used to translate essay writing assignments to students who are not native English speakers. This would enable the student to write the essay in his or her own language and translate it into English. This would be helpful for many students because writing an essay in a foreign language can be a daunting task. With or without AI, the method in which foreign language students write essays will change, as it has for native English speakers. Overall, AI will have a profound effect on the way students approach their essay writing assignments. AI can be a valuable tool for the future in facilitating a higher standard of essay writing. This comes at the cost of individual creativity and critical thinking in the process of writing an essay. But in today’s society, individualism is best put aside for the attainment of a set standard. Individualism can be expressed in other ways, and students must realize that the overall intention of essay writing is to persuade or inform an audience about a certain topic, and the quality of the writing should not fall short of the intention. Given this intention, AI will aid students in higher achievement of the end result by fostering better writing habits and providing a more efficient method to learn from essay writing mistakes. So in reflection of the impact of AI in scholarship essay writing, one can surmise that the progress of AI is synonymous with changing trends of essay writing in a smarter and more efficient direction.