How to Сheck If an Essay is AI-Generated

Today, almost everyone has already tried AI tools for different purposes, especially when it comes to generating texts. Essays, reports, blog posts, emails, and other types of AI-written pieces are everywhere now.

Sometimes you need to know that some texts were created by a machine, and, if you’re a teacher, you want to know exactly how to tell if an essay is AI-generated. 

Our guide is a perfect way to learn more about this. You’ll read about tools and practical tips that will allow you to spot AI writing in any text.

Why Detecting AI-Generated Content is Important

Students who often turn to AI tools to generate essays usually think, “What’s the problem?” AI-generated content is well-polished, correctly written, and in good English. From one side, it’s true – the text is clean and you can get it fast. But detecting AI matters for different other reasons.

One of them is academic integrity. If you’re a student or educator, knowing how to check if an essay is AI-generated will prevent plagiarism and help maintain fairness in the studying process. If a student submits AI-generated work without credit and acknowledgement, it’s considered cheating and can ruin a student’s reputation.

However, the main thing is that a student will not learn anything. When you create an essay by yourself, you develop critical thinking, do the research, and infuse the text with your own thoughts and ideas. This is the main purpose of learning how to write. 

Signs that an Essay is AI-Generated

So, what are the red flags? How to tell if an essay is AI-generated? Here’s what you should look for:

1. Overly polished language

AI tends to use flawless grammar and formal tone throughout everything. If every sentence is perfectly structured and transitions are mechanical, that’s suspicious. Also, repetitive phrasing sounds strange. For example, using the same sentence patterns.

2. Lack of genuine insight or personal experience

Since AI doesn’t experience life, at least yet, if the essay feels like it’s just summarizing information from sources without a real perspective, that means it wasn’t written by a real human. Phrases like “experts agree that,” without further personal commentary, very often indicate AI generation.

3. Inaccuracies in facts

AI sometimes puts in texts false facts or misrepresented ideas. You should always double-check if you see some strange statistics or quotes. If you’re wondering how to check if a paper is AI-generated, always find references and check facts within credible sources.

4. Overuse of cohesive words and phrases

Phrases like “furthermore,” “in conclusion,” “as previously mentioned,” might appear more frequently than a natural human could write. AI loves these phrases, and they can make the text sound robotic.

5. Lack of emotional nuances

Human writing always reflects the mood, opinion, vibe, sense of humor, and emotional depth of a person who writes it. So if a paper is technically perfect but feels soulless, it could be AI-generated. 

Tools and Techniques for Detection

A lot of people think that it’s impossible to tell whether text comes from a human or from a machine. But there are several signals you can use as red flags.

It’s not about finding one single problem, but about combining several techniques and then making a correct judgment of any essay or other text. Here’s how to check as a professional:

1. Online AI detection tools

Some specific online tools can effectively spot AI-generated text. However, they all aren’t 100% perfect, they give you a probability and it helps to guide your intuition. Think of these tools like a calculator: they save you time but don’t replace your brain.

Here are some popular tools:

• GPTZero – This tool was created with essays in mind and focuses on academic papers. Teachers use it very often to understand the truth about essays submitted by students. GPTZero analyzes sentence structure, predictability, and randomness in the writing.
• Originality.AI – This tool is more for professional use. It combines AI detection and plagiarism checking. It’s very helpful to do two tasks at the same time.
• Copyleaks – This tool evaluates the likelihood of AI generation. It’s used widely in schools, but also by businesses that want to make sure their marketing materials are authentic.

When using such tools, it’s important to remember: they only give you predictions, not absolute proof. Sometimes these tools mark human writing as AI, and sometimes they miss AI text that looks very natural. Combining these tools with manual checks and your own judgment works best.

2. Style and consistency checks

One of the easiest ways to check if an essay was generated is simply looking at the style of writing. People naturally vary sentence lengths. They choose various words, synonyms, and they write in a specific tone of voice. It doesn’t look like it was written by a robot. Human sentences start differently, there are interruptions, and almost always there are little imperfections in human writing.

AI often creates very effective texts, and the rhythm of them is usually very smooth. When you read the text aloud, it becomes clearer if it sounds mechanical or not. For example, if you’re wondering how to tell if a paper is AI-generated manually, try highlighting repeated phrases. If every second paragraph begins with words like “Moreover,” “Furthermore,” or “In addition,” it may be AI-generated.

3. Fact verification

Another strong technique is fact-checking. AI sometimes invents sources that don’t exist, and this can be a red flag. For example, you may read a sentence with some dates, numbers, or statistics about a famous school like Harvard, and it may sound very realistic. But when you’re trying to find this information in the original studies, you realize it doesn’t exist.

This happens because AI generates text and doesn’t verify facts. So, if you find errors in information, it means that the text was probably generated. Simply verifying sources works well as a real student usually refers to real material.

4. Metadata and document analysis

This one is more complicated to perform but still possible. For essays submitted as files, you can check document metadata and reveal the details about creating text. AI tools sometimes leave traces in files. It’s best to combine this method with a style check.

5. Peer review and expert opinion

Finally, you can ask somebody to help you verify whether this paper was AI-generated or not. Ask a colleague, teacher, or an expert in the field. Especially people who read a lot of essays or professional texts as they can easily spot AI-generated phrasing, sometimes even faster than any tool.

How to Tell if an Essay is AI Generated: Practical Tips for Educators

Now you know about the tools that help you to verify AI in essays and also the science of AI generation. Here is how to apply this information in practice:

1. Encourage transparency

If students use AI for drafting, encourage them to acknowledge it. AI can be a helpful tool that allows brainstorming, structuring, and creating, but it’s important to be honest about using it. If students admit that they use the help of an AI generator, you can help them focus on critical thinking and creativity.encourage them to acknowledge it. AI can be a helpful tool that allows brainstorming, structuring, and creating, but it’s important to be honest about using it. If students admit that they use the help of an AI generator, you can help them focus on critical thinking and creativity.

2. Combine tools

Never rely only on AI detection software. Combine this with your intuition, with manual checks, with other tools, and so on.

3. Provide limitations

Teaching students about common errors helps to prevent problems. Explain to students how AI can manipulate facts, use robotic sentence structures, and so on. Once they realize how it looks, they also will be able to work on content better.

4. Spot multiple signals

One red flag isn’t enough. Maybe a student just uses special phrases which are detected by AI detection tools like a machine. But if you see a lot of red flags or repeated patterns in a text, it becomes more realistic that it was AI.

5. Document your checks

If you are a teacher, always note your AI detection process, and it will protect you from making false accusations. It also helps you refine your own ability to tell if an essay is AI-generated.

Maintaining Balance Between Trust and Control

One of the keys to success when it comes to AI-related rules for students is in balance between trust and control. Teachers should create a friendly atmosphere in their classes. It means that there must be less fear and more understanding. Students must realize that from one side you trust them, and from the other side you still control the process and check the quality of their work.

Setting clear rules of how to use AI in classroom would be helpful in maintaining balance. For example you can encourage students to use AI for drafting, structuring, paraphrasing, brainstorming ideas, and so on. But at the same time they must take the responsibility for their personal input into writing. Ask students to work on a raw draft adding it with their own thoughts and ideas and let them understand that their final grades depend on their efforts.

One of the exercises teachers can implement is generating drafts in the class and then each student must add drafts with their own thoughts making it authentic. They will see by themselves how human input changes everything.

Conclusion

Detecting AI-generated content is not easy. But when you realize what tools you need to use and learn how to tell if an essay is AI-generated, it means that you maintain academic integrity and professional accuracy. Remember that AI is a tool, but not a replacement for humans and it cannot be as creative and as emotional as a real person. That’s the power of human writers.