Table of Contents

AI, Ethics & Human Agency

Citation

Collaboration

Genre

Information Literacy

Mindset

Research

Rhetoric

Style

Writing Process

AI & The Future of Writing – Special Topics – LIT 6934 – Fall 2024

Dear Colleagues and Students,

I hope all’s well! I’m sorry to announce that I won’t be teaching this course on AI & the Future of next fall. It’s been postponed to a later date. However, I do plan to start a new section at Writing Commons with the same title.

Please check back in a week or two and I hope to have that section drafted.

Meanwhile, my best wishes!

Professor Moxley

Please note the course description and schedule below are quite rough. My plan is to improve this page in the days ahead as I prepare to teach it in the future.

Course Description

In AI & the Future of Writing, we will employ a critical, technorhetorical perspective and use autoethnographic methods to investigate how emerging technologies are remediating 

  1. agency, authorship & power
    1. (Who is driving the bus? AI or the rhetorician?)
  2. copyright
  3. writing tools/spaces – channels of communication media
  4. composing processes
  5. interpretive frameworks
  6. literacy practices
    1. Genres and discourse conventions are in a state of flux; humans and AI are collaborating to further synthesize visual rhetoric with traditional alphabetical discourse. Writing is increasingly multimodal and interactive.
  7. Copyright and Intellectual Property.

Students will leave the course with

  1. a deeper understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of scholarship in computers and writing, the subdiscipline of writing studies that focuses on human-machine interactions.
  2. knowledge of new writing tools
  3. ideas for future research and scholarship.

REQUIREMENTS

  1. Participation
  2. Weekly Response Papers
  3. Class Facilitation
  4. Weekly AI Experiments
  5. Pitch a Project for an Academic Research Article

TEXTS

Texts will be available online or through Library Services. You will be able to access most assigned readings from this schedule: <https://writingcommons.org/courses/ai-the-future-of-writing-fall-2024/>

DEGREE REQUIREMENTS MET

  • MA/PhD elective

Syllabus

Instructor Information

Joseph M. Moxley, Professor of English, He/Him/His
Office: CPR 383, College of Arts & Sciences
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2-3 p.m. and by appointment. Please email me when you have questions: mox@usf.edu. Don’t hesitate to reach out. I don’t mind jumping on a call. I’d much rather have you ask sooner rather than later. We can meet online through Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet. Let me know your preference.

AI Policy

I’m all for your using AI tools such as Chat GPT or Midjourney. I think moving forward, like it or not, we will be working a lot with AI to accelerate communication processes. However, I strongly encourage you to develop your own unique style, voice — and thoughts. At this point of time, it’s easy to recognize a prose style generated by AI: it tends to address content at the superficial level, it hallucinates, and it tends to follow a formulaic sentence and organizational structure. Remember, as well, that tools such as ChatGPT are founded on the greatest intellectual property theft of all time: The developers vacuumed the internet, swallowing all of that content whole. They didn’t care about U.S. copyright law or intellectual property rights — or the laws that protect a writer’s work in other countries. Instead, they dumped all of those words into a bucket — what corpus linguists call a corpus. Then they used statistical probability analysis to predict which letter or letters are likely to follow other letters. Then they used humans to train the dataset.

You should know that I can tell when work is based on AI and served up whole as if context doesn’t matter in clear communication. I can also determine, I believe, whether your prose has been worked though multiple iterations. Eventually, it may be impossible to discern AI prose from human prose. Presently, though, that’s not the case.

Currently, in higher education there is a great deal of conversation and debate about how professions and disciplines should respond to the usage of AI assisted writing for classroom assignments.

In my opinion, we are in a pickle: the conventions that have guided our society regarding intellectual property are shifting in response to the emergence of large language models. Professional organizations, journals, and book publishers are working on new methods for attributing sources generated from humans coauthority with AI. Lawyers and businesses and the government are wresting with how AI can be used for the benefit of humanity. We are at a revolutionary moment when it comes to language practices. People in school and workplaces are suddenly grappling with powerful AI-informed Digital Assistants, who are capable of setting their appointments and doing routine writing. All of this brings into question what the future is for writing and professional writers, and how if humans strop writing that may influence cognition and the ongoing conversations of humankind

Meanwhile, though, it’s also important to note that in school settings and work settings it is a violation of academic and/or professional integrity for you to submit work that has make up sources and evidence. Thus, if you experiment with AI, you must not simply “copy and paste.” Instead, you need to check every source and quotation — really every word. So, from my perspective, it’s fine for you to work with AI but whatever you turn in needs to be yours: it needs to reflect your voice, tone, voice, persona — and thinking.

Academic & Professional Writing Citation Styles for Attributing AI

If you choose to use an AI technology for writing, attribute your use of AI by referencing it. For assignments in this class, it is fine for you to attach a statement to your assignment that explains how you worked with AI to author the text. You do not need to attach transcripts. Please note, however I may ask you to provide a transcript of the prompts you gave to the AI when working on the assignment.

As an academic or professional writing, you need to identify the citation style the discourse community you are addressing expects you to use. Here are the guidelines for students from APA 7 and MLA 9:

  • APA 7:  Open AI.  (Year). ChatGPT (month day version) [Large Language Model].  https://chat.openai.com/chat
  • MLA 9:  “Prompt text” prompt.  ChatGPT, day month. version, OpenAI, day month year, chat.openai.com/chat
  • Chicago:  ChatGPT, response to “Prompt text,” OpenAI, month, day, year, https://chat.openai.com/chat

Personal Pronouns

So that I may refer to you with the appropriate pronoun in Canvas, the University’s course LMS (learning management system), please set your preferences for your personal pronoun at Canvas > Settings. If you have a first name change request for Canvas, please email IDM-Help@usf.edu from your official USF email account. You do not need to provide personal details for the request. Tell USF the first name you want to show in Canvas. This will also change your name in the directory, but it will not change your email address.

Learn more about personal pronouns and how they are tied to inclusive language.

How Can You Do Well in This Class?

  1. Show up.
  2. Show up every time we meet.
  3. Show up on time.
  4. Show up ready to participate enthusiastically in class activities and class discussions.
  5. Show up prepared (i.e., complete all assigned readings and assignments before class).

Best wishes for a productive semester. Reach out to me when you have questions: mox@usf.edu.

REQUIREMENTS

Participation

Attendance means being there; participation means being involved. For a strong participation grade, prepare by reading and completing assignments before class. This ensures you’re ready to actively discuss and participate in activities. Respect and courtesy are essential, particularly in disagreements.

Weekly Response Papers

Share (via gdocs in a course sandbox) 12, 250-to-500-word weekly responses to course readings with your instructor and peers. Use APA 7. Be sure to introduce and link to (if available) the readings your are summarizing and critiquing. Also, in your response papers, link to the interpretations and arguments and of your peers.

Class Facilitation

Each student will take a turn leading a class discussion for up to 60 minutes. In this role, you will craft discussion questions and active-learning exercises related to assigned readings. Facilitators are responsible for providing an annotated bibliography of the week’s readings and posting this bibliography on the course’s gdoc sandbox.

Major Project

Rather than a final paper that is due at end-of-term, you are expected to keep a research notebook. In this notebook, you are expected to write 12, 250-to-500-word, weekly project updates. Use APA 7. Assume the persona of a micro, author ethnographer: tell a weekly-story about your efforts to experiment with emerging technologies.

Pitch a Project for an Academic Project

At the end of the semester, pitch an article idea (5 to 10 pages) to your instructor. Or, pitch multiple articles in a more summary fashion, ordering them by your self interest. Your pitch should identify the target publication, identify a research protocol if it’s an empirical study, and provide a literature review that clarifies the significance of the proposed research

Attendance

Students are expected to attend classes. Students who anticipate an issue with regular attendance or with being on time should take the course in a semester when their schedule is more flexible. 

Students who accrue three unexcused absences—missing one and a half weeks of a fifteen week semester—will receive a B in the course provided they complete the labor efforts required to otherwise earn a B grade. Students who miss five classes (unexcused) will will receive a C in the course provided they complete the labor efforts required to otherwise earn a B grade. Upon the sixth unexcused absence, the student will automatically fail the course.

Students may arrange to turn assignments in late if they miss class for one of the following university-approved reasons, AND they’ve alerted me prior to the absence when feasible. Excused absences include:

  1. Court Imposed Legal Obligations
  2. Jury Duty, court subpoena, etc.
  3. Military Duty
  4. Religious Holy Days. Note: Students who anticipate the necessity of being absent from class due to the observation of a major religious observance must provide notice of the date(s) to the instructor, in writing, by the second class meeting.
  5. Ongoing Medical Conditions. Students facing extenuating circumstances, such as a debilitating illness or injury (physical or mental) or disability that inhibits him or her from attending class or completing assignments, must work with the appropriate on-campus organization (e.g., the Center for Victim Advocacy & Violence Prevention, SOCAT: Students of Concern Assistance Team, USF’s Student Health Services, USF’s Student Accessibility Services). The appropriate on-campus organization will then act as a liaison on behalf of the student and help the instructor determine appropriate action. As your instructor, I am not qualified to determine appropriate accommodations for ongoing medical conditions, and I will require documentation and guidance from these experts/liaisons.
  6. Presenting at a professional conference. Students who miss class because they are participating in a scheduled professional conference are expected to present a schedule of the event upon returning to class.
  7. USF Athletics’ Participation. Students who miss class because they are participating in a scheduled USF athletics event are expected to present a schedule of the USF athletic events that require their participation to me by the first week of the semester if they intend to be absent for a class or an announced examination.

If you plan to miss assignments due to the reasons listed above, you are responsible for informing me about your excused absence prior to the absence and for making up the missed work within a week of the original deadline. 

Beyond university-excused absences: please be in touch with me as early as possible if you’d like to request an extension for a *very* good reason (e.g., serious illness or accident, death of a family member, job interview), and I will consider your request if it is accompanied by relevant documentation. 

If you do not have a university-approved excuse for your absence or if you do not receive an extension from me, I will not accept late work.

Schedule

Week 1 – Introduction AI

Week 2

Week 3

Resources

What is AI?

  • What are the affordances and constraints of different AI tools?
    • What composing and co

Composing Processes

Copyright and Intellectual Property

Discourse Conventions – Literacy Practices

  • How are the discourse practices of students, teachers, and knowledge workers likely to evolve in an ecosystem where AI assistants can do the lion’s share of research, invention, writing, citation, revising, and editing? 

Ethics

  • In what ways do How can humanity protect the intellectual property rights of authors and artists? 
  • How can humanity ensure AI is used for ethical purposes? 
  • How should writing studies respond appropriately to this?

Learning

  • How can AI can be used to assist learning?

Futures

  • Will writing become passé?
  • In the future, will AI do the lion share of the work or the work of professional writers be on supervising the writing of the AI? 
  • How will humanity respond to an intelligence that exceeds its intelligence?  

Archives – Repositories

Learn with AI

University of Main repository

Chatbots – AI Assistants

Ethics

Composing Processes

Copyright and Intellectual Property

Discourse Conventions – Literacy Practices

  • How are the discourse practices of students, teachers, and knowledge workers likely to evolve in an ecosystem where AI assistants can do the lion’s share of research, invention, writing, citation, revising, and editing? 

Ethics

  • In what ways do How can humanity protect the intellectual property rights of authors and artists? 
  • How can humanity ensure AI is used for ethical purposes? 
  • How should writing studies respond appropriately to this?

Learning

  • How can AI can be used to assist learning?

Futures

  • Will writing become passé?
  • In the future, will AI do the lion share of the work or the work of professional writers be on supervising the writing of the AI? 
  • How will humanity respond to an intelligence that exceeds its intelligence?  

FAQs

How many jobs will be replaced by AI?