It’s no longer feasible or practical to deny the widening presence of AI. Artificial intelligence is everywhere. It writes online articles (not this one, of course), underwrites mortgages, predicts the outcomes of baseball games, breathes life into customer service bots, deciphers long-lost texts from charred Pompeii scrolls… the list goes on.

Oh, and it’s also becoming increasingly prevalent in the classroom – to the concern and contentment of educators everywhere. Used effectively, AI can be a powerful tool in the classroom, capable of streamlining research and aiding in brainstorming. However, when used incorrectly or negligently, it commits one of the cardinal sins of academic integrity: plagiarism.

In this guide, your leading online high school in Ontario enters the debate. Below, we take stock of one of the latest education trends to supply students with a roadmap for responsible AI use. Here’s what to do – and what not to do – to prevent plagiarism and make the most of this cutting-edge tool.

What Is Plagiarism?

Let’s begin with U of T’s bare-bones definition of plagiarism:

“Broadly speaking, plagiarism is failing to give credit for any ideas or expressions of ideas that are not your own.”

You’ll notice that most universities’ definitions of plagiarism have changed over time. It used to be about stealing another “person’s” work without proper credit. Now, it’s simply defined as appropriating any work that isn’t your own—including work generated by an unthinking, data-synthesizing computer program.

You absolutely can use other people’s work to help guide and colour your own theses and thinking. We did it directly above when we cited the University of Toronto. But notice that we worked the definition into our own argument, provided context, and – critically – cited the source. That’s the difference between responsible academic citation and bad-faith plagiarism.

Why Does It Matter?

So, what’s the big problem with plagiarism? How is using AI a threat to academic integrity, when all it’s really doing is giving students answers they could get elsewhere?

Put simply, a student must understand the difference between gaining knowledge and appearing to be knowledgeable. When students plagiarize AI in their submitted work, they demonstrate that they likely have not absorbed, understood or retained the concepts therein; they have simply outsourced the work, remaining a passive agent in the educational transaction.

This passivity has massive implications for a student’s education. Cheating through plagiarism is only cheating yourself. Post-secondary degrees and after-high-school careers will require you to demonstrate and apply what you’ve learned in high school. If you have bypassed the challenging work of learning, relying instead on deception, you will fail to gain crucial skills that will serve you in your future.

Plus, most teachers use AI detectors these days. So, there’s that to think about!

Using AI Irresponsibly: A Case Study in What Not to Do

Before we illustrate best practice tips for online learning with AI, perhaps it’d be informational to create a case study of a student who did everything wrong. Let’s call this person “Student X.” (Do not be like Student X!)

Follow student X as they use an AI generator, and see if you can spot why these are unproductive, academically harmful uses of the technology. Not all of these misuses pertain to plagiarism, but they each hold the student back in unique ways.

Case 1: A Student Uses AI for a Finished Essay or Submitted Project

Student X has a fast-approaching deadline for an English 11 essay on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. They ask an AI generator to come up with topics. They select from a list of topics and ask the generator to create a 750-word academic paper on their chosen subject. At no point does Student X engage critically with MacBeth; at no point do they undertake their own close reading, analysis or thesis-building.

Consequently, the student learns nothing about MacBeth. Moreover, they learn nothing about building a five-paragraph essay, structuring an argument, honing their writing skills, or practicing their grammar. The teacher checks their essay with an AI detector, and determines that Student X has plagiarized.

Case 2: A Student Fails to Cross-Check the Information Given by AI

Student X has a history project due next week on the dissolution of the USSR. They ask for a submittable project, and the AI generator creates them a lengthy profile of Yugoslavia after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

There’s only one problem: Yugoslavia wasn’t part of the USSR. Student X put their unwavering faith in the correctness of the AI generator, only to turn in a project that was wrong from the get-go.

The teacher asks Student X to redo the project. Not learning their lesson the first time, the student turns to an AI generator again. This time, the AI generator gives them a suitable topic – Czechoslovakia – and turns in a project that would make a university student proud. However, Student X fails to recognize that, this time, the AI generator pulled significant ideas and phrases from other authors yet failed to credit or cite them. (AI will do that!) The teacher catches on that several heavily relied-upon sources have gone uncredited and must consider this project plagiarized.

Case 3: Disregarding Critical Consideration and Media Awareness, a Student Fails to Recognize Biases and Cultural Insensitivity in AI Answers

What Student X might not know about AI is that it indiscriminately synthesizes data from across the web – including the internet’s racist, misogynist, ableist, and culturally insensitive materials.

When Student X asks for a paper on European colonialism, they fail to vet the material for biases or cultural insensitivity. As a result, Student X turns in a paper containing unconscionable language, outdated ideas, and problematic frames of reference.

Case 4: A Student Over-relies on AI at the Expense of Critical Thinking

After a few negative experiences, Student X starts to use AI more responsibly. They use it primarily for research, grammar checks and organization. However, over time, they begin to over-rely on the tool.

They view it as a shortcut, a convenient way to save time. Rather than engaging critically with their course materials, they outsource much of the challenging work to the AI program. Therefore, “critical thinking” becomes an unused muscle, so to speak.

How to Use AI Responsibly as a Student

Alright, so we’ve explored the scarier side of misusing AI in your high school courses. That leaves one burning question: Can a student use AI responsibly?

The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is that AI is a tool like any other – a calculator, Wikipedia entry, textbook, or productivity app. Like all the best tools for virtual learning, it’s wonderful for streamlining your studies, but it shouldn’t be a replacement for your human skills, abilities, and growth potential.

Further, students should diligently cross-reference any claim an AI generator makes with authoritative sources to ensure accuracy. They should also diligently and transparently record their sources for citations.

Below, explore a few specific ways to use AI responsibly as a student.

Use AI for Ideation and Brainstorming – But Reach Your Own Theses and Conclusions

AI can be a terrific tool to get your footing. Using the example above, let’s say you need to generate topics surrounding the fall of the USSR for a history class. Asking AI to present you with potential topics allows you to get the spark started.

Notice that we do not advocate for using AI in theses and conclusions – only premises and ideas. At the end of the day, it benefits your education far more if you arrive at your own thesis, drawing sensible conclusions from your research. And always remember to fact-check information provided by these services.

Use AI for Specific Research (Fastidiously Checking Its Sources and Credibility)

Understandably, sometimes you just need an answer to a niche question. For instance, we asked a popular AI generator to give us a straightforward explanation of the difference between sine and cosine. It gave us this:

“Sine (sin) of an angle measures the ratio of the length of the opposite side to the hypotenuse in a right triangle, while cosine (cos) measures the ratio of the adjacent side to the hypotenuse. On the unit circle, sine represents the y-coordinate and cosine represents the x-coordinate of a point corresponding to the angle.”

Importantly, we cross-referenced these claims against material in authoritative sources like textbooks to find that it was correct.

Organize Manually Written Notes to Make Them More Coherent

Here’s a fantastic use for AI: as a logical organizational tool.

Often, the notes students take in class are sprawling, stream-of-consciousness, and not hierarchically structured. It’s hard enough to jot down pertinent info – organizing it on the fly seems nearly impossible sometimes.

However, you can feed those notes into an AI generator and ask it to organize the notes according to popular note taking strategies like the Cornell Method. The generator will collate, structure and systematize your notes, giving you back notes that are easier to review come exam time.

Ask for Help with Grammar and Spelling – Complete with Explanations

Let’s say you’ve written an essay you’re proud of. Before you turn it in, you want someone (or something) to proofread it for mechanical errors. Go ahead and ask AI for grammar/spelling suggestions.

However, you should also ask it to provide explanations for its suggestions. You want to understand why it recommends changes to particular syntax, punctuation, etc. That way, you can learn the rules and avoid mistakes in the future.

Question the Points of View and Biases of AI Answers

Whenever an AI generator gives you answers – whether they are topic ideas, definitions, recounts of historical events, etc. – take a moment to think about them critically. Are there inherent biases present in the answers? What points of view are the answers advancing? Crucially, do these answers cross a line into poor taste?

Remember that AI “learns” from the internet, which isn’t always a hospitable place for historically marginalized peoples.

Absorb, Reflect, and Make It Your Own

To summarize this article’s argument thus far, AI tools for high school students are basically search engines (albeit highly sophisticated search engines). They receive prompts and attempt to provide likely answers based on existing materials.

In this way, an AI generator is not dissimilar from Google, or even your textbooks. It is just an expedited kind of knowledge infrastructure, one that’s liable (unlike your textbooks) to produce wrong or wrongheaded answers occasionally.

Therefore, we give you the same advice we give you when reviewing your textbooks or scouring Google for answers. Absorb the information it gives you; cross-reference the information it gives you; understand how the information fits into the larger concerns and concepts of your course materials; when it comes time to use this information in an essay or project, make it your own by putting it in your own words. And if you need to quote something verbatim, ask AI for an authoritative source, find the pertinent quotes, and then cite that source rigorously.

Consider Abstaining Entirely from AI for a More Enriching High School Experience

Lastly, you may choose to abstain from AI altogether. AI can help you in your studies, undoubtedly. But it isn’t the only way to get help – far from it.

At OES, you are surrounded by a network of people whose sole aim is to empower you academically. Your teachers, administrators and 24/7 tutors are always present to help you through problems. Whether you need a fresh pair of eyes on an essay, clarification on a definition, help brainstorming topics, or a sympathetic presence to chat with, OES’ expert staff is here to help.

As much as some people wish it weren’t so, AI is here to stay. It is quickly becoming an appreciable presence in the modern virtual classroom. Therefore, students must understand the difference between using it productively, and misusing it for convenience.

If there’s one tidbit of information we can leave you with, it’s this: Let AI give you its research, but never let it think for you. You are in control of your schoolwork, including how you interpret, understand and cite your sources.