Writing an Argumentative Essay with AI – The Smart and Safe Way

Each student knows that essays are one of the most widespread types of papers you might get assigned to write in a college or a university. Writing an essay means that you should be skilled in it, have relevant experience, and knowledge. Moreover, you must involve critical thinking, come up with the right argumentation, and structure a paper properly, as well as use a specific formatting style. 

Essay writing often becomes an issue for students who lack time or simply experience writer’s block. Sometimes you don’t know how to even start writing a paper and need help, especially when the deadline is very close. Being tempted by the option of using effective AI writing tools is normal nowadays. Writing a paper with the help of a machine is a very effective way to deal with writer’s block and save time. But how do you use AI without ending up in a situation where your teacher or professor accuses you of plagiarism? Let’s find out.

What is an argumentative essay?

An argumentative essay is a paper the purpose of which is to defend a debatable position or an issue with the goal of persuading readers to agree with an author and accept their arguments. The author must convince readers to join their position on a particular issue. The audience might agree completely, might agree with some concerns, or disagree with the position. Usually, argumentative essays contain a clear basis statement that presents both the topic and the subject of the essay, and the debatable point of view the writer is claiming.

The main risks of using AI to write essays

Now let’s discuss the main risks that come with using AI to create an argumentative essay. 

1. Plagiarism detection

Even if you created a perfect prompt and got technically original text, copying the sentences word-for-word or using too-perfect academic English language, especially if it doesn’t fit your usual writing style, can become a red flag for teachers or be detected as plagiarism by specified software. 

2. Fact-checking issues

Sometimes AI can come up with incorrect, nonexistent, or outdated information, so you cannot rely on it completely. If you just copy the text without verifying facts, it can weaken your argumentation, which is crucial for this type of essay. 

3. Over-dependence

Essays that are mostly AI-generated cannot become a good instrument for learning because if you copy-paste the text, you don’t develop your own critical thinking and research skills. 

4. Lack of personal voice

Papers generated by a machine may sound too robotic and lead to the loss of your original tone of voice. If a teacher knows how students usually style sentences, they will notice these changes. 

AI is a very helpful instrument, but it cannot be a replacement for you as an author. You must come up with judgments, personal voice, critical thinking, and strong argumentation you developed on your own. Only if you use AI tools responsibly and know these risks can you keep control over your work.

How to use AI to write an argumentative essay

Creating an effective paper with the help of AI is possible if you’ll follow the next recommendations:

1. Read the instructions

Before you even start formulating a prompt for ChatGPT or another AI tool, you need to read the manuals from a teacher to know exactly what the assignment is asking for. You cannot skip this stage because it’s crucial to understand the topic, the goal of writing, the purpose of argumentation, and the concept of the overall paper. You also need to understand word count, what formatting style you need to use, citation style, and so on. 

Formulating a clear prompt will prevent AI from giving you just generic, messed-up words that will make zero sense. So you need to clarify and understand the assignment first.

2. Use AI as a brainstorming assistant

The first thing you need to understand is you don’t need to ask an AI to write an essay instead of you. You need to use it as an assistant to ask questions and get meaningful answers. It may help you to brainstorm, give you new ideas, facts, and angles of view. But you must remain the one who is forming the essay and creating argumentation. Such an approach will keep your tone of voice present, and your paper will sound like you. Because technically using AI in writing will just give you raw material, and you will be the boss who is in charge of everything. 

3. Paraphrase and rewrite

AI usually comes up with many clichés and too-generic texts. If a teacher knows your usual style, it will look awkward. So you need to take the outcome AI gives you and rewrite it in your own tone of voice. Add some examples from your own life, maybe some jokes, and create a specific sentence rhythm. 

You can also change the sentence structure, replace words with synonyms, break up long sentences into shorter ones, and so on. Be strategic with AI-generated phrases. Sometimes AI adds text with fancy phrases that you would not naturally say, and it will look very awkward to a teacher, especially if they know your style. Keep the ideas, but change the tone of voice.

4. Follow the outlining rules

Argumentative essays require a specific structure. AI will not always follow the academic rules, so it’s your responsibility to check if an outline generated by a machine meets the manuals. Usually, a standard argumentative essay must contain the following structural elements:

• Introduction. This section presents a topic and explains your arguments to readers.
• The thesis statement. This is the first paragraph of a paper that will concisely provide your main point.
• Body paragraphs. Three or more sections that will explain your evidence, provide argumentation, and support your thesis to win readers’ trust.
• Conclusion. Here you restate your thesis and sum up all the core arguments.

5. Insert your own examples

If you want to add more human writing touch to your argumentative essay, you should come up with real-life examples. Ideally, these must be stories from your own experience, if relevant to a topic. Such essays will sound like you and will be almost impossible to detect as generated. 

6. Work on sources

AI essay writers often take general info from the Internet and basic sources. Such an approach might work for brainstorming, but you need to dig deeper to infuse your argumentative essay with rare facts and non-trivial ideas. It will make your paper stand out. 

Check all the sources, ensure they are reliable, and ensure that AI suggestions make sense. You can use at least one or two direct sources you read by yourself: books, articles, notes from the lectures, and so on. Don’t forget to always verify what AI suggests. 

7. Avoid over-dependence on AI

You need to be sure that AI doesn’t do more than 30% of all the work on your argumentative essay. You can use this tool for ideas, for structure, for counter-argumentation, and examples. But the main work must come from you. Your essay must not be perfect, but sound like you wrote it.

8. Paraphrase but don’t plagiarize

AI can provide great formulations that you can rewrite and make sound more like you. Change the structure, add your commentaries to avoid plagiarism detection. If you use a basic AI output, it may be a problem because such papers are often detected as plagiarism. 

9. Polish and edit your paper

Of course, AI will help you with grammar and logical flow, but you need to proofread the paper on your own as well. It’s important to read the text out loud, check the style, and see if everything is clear. You also need to check if you followed all the instructions from the teacher, read the manuals, and checked all the points.

Conclusion

Now you know how to use AI to help write an argumentative essay responsibly. How you use an AI argumentative essay writer defines the result, and your approach can change everything. You can use it for ideas, outlines, sentence structure, or inspiration, but the paper itself must be written by you. This is crucial.

If you follow the steps we provided: understand the manuals and instructions, use AI for brainstorming, rewrite everything in your own tone, insert your own examples, cross-check sources, add your own research results, avoid over-dependance on AI, edit personally, and paraphrase, you’ll succeed.

Most importantly, by putting real work into your paper, you stay safe: no AI detection tool will use AI responsibly. Remember, AI is just a tool, you are the author. Your argument must be supported with strong evidence, and you must always focus on the academic goals: developing your own thinking and critical reasoning. Good luck!