How to Get ChatGPT to Write an Essay

  • April 17, 2024
  • 15 mins read
Laurie Smith Content Writer @myStylus

In the modern era, many students find themselves typing the phrase “how do I get ChatGPT to write an essay” into Google on a regular basis. Search engines are inundated with this question because of how difficult and time-consuming it can be to do this kind of assignment.

The reality is that tech exists now that can help you in this regard. The bots infused with artificial intelligence can potentially be a big help to you as you attempt to do your schoolwork at home. AI can certainly assist you if you learn how to utilize it properly, and so can the MyStylus.

writing essay with chat gpt

What is This Technology?

To put it as succinctly as possible, Chat GPT paper writer is a bot that makes use of advanced algorithms and computer learning models to help with writing tasks. You can edit existing essays with it, or you might have it rewrite a term paper instead.

How To Use ChatGTP to Write an Essay

It is true that writing an essay with Chat GPT is considered to be plagiarism by some teachers and professors. Every instructor in academia has their own classroom policies in this regard.

“I think the current conversation around AI should not be centered on an issue with plagiarism. It should be centered on how AI will alter methods for learning and expressing oneself. ‘Catching’ students who use fully AI-generated products … implies a ‘gotcha’ atmosphere,” Jim Nagle said for the Boston Globe.

However, using this option can legitimately help some students if they modify what the bot gives them. Whether you are chastised by a professor depends on the finished product you turn in.

Selecting a Topic

Maybe you don’t necessarily want ChatGPT to write essays for you. Instead, you are more interested in inputting a prompt and getting back some ideas. For example, you might type something like:

  • Generate 5 ideas for papers about the Louisiana Purchase
  • Suggest a topic for a paper about the Civil War
  • Give me a topic for a thesis in the biology field

As you can see, when we asked chat to give us a topic, it not only gave an idea but also suggested in short what could be explored.

Any of those would work fine. You can also ask for elaboration on a topic. You might ask for an approach to an idea that will help you get started. You might say something like “give me some details on the following topic,” or “provide an approach to each of the topics generated.”

Creation of an Outline with a Chat GPT Essay Writer

To write essay with Chat GPT is only a little of what this handy tool can do for you. You can also ask for assistance with an outline.

If you’re not a very confident writer, this can help you stay within the assignment parameters without straying or deviating from them.

Students are overwhelmed […] For those who are weak in writing, [it might be helpful to] use AI chatbots to start the brainstorming process.
Adam Nguyen Former Ivy League college admissions counselor

Here are some examples of what you might say:

  • Create an outline based on [this topic]
  • Suggest a rough structure for [this paper]
  • Finish outlining this idea for an assignment I had [paste your assignment here]

As a continuation of a topic, we decided to ask for a rough structure. Here, Chat gave us everything we need in case we were struggling with outlining the paper and structuring the text.

You might also write a prompt with more details if you want to get back a more precise response. You could say how many pages you want the essay to be. You might mention how many headings and subheadings you want.

A prompt could be something like “I need an outline based on this topic for an assignment that will be three pages long. It needs to have three headings in addition to the introduction and the conclusion.”

Writing Introductions

There’s no denying that using a ChatGPT essay writer can give you an advantage over students who elect not to use it. For instance, you can improve your paper’s introduction if you don’t feel that what you have is strong enough yet. You might give the AI the following instructions:

  • Create an introduction to a paper about mental health
  • Craft an intro to an assignment about the dangers of social media
  • Create an introductory paragraph of no less than 300 words about Thomas Jefferson’s contributions to the American system of governance

For this one, we specified the topic a little, so the instruction would be more clear. This introduction could make a great start for your future paper. Sometimes you just need a little help at the start to get into the writing process.

You can get as specific as you like with your requests. You will be able to get an intro to your paper that is engaging and will set the tone for the body of the text that is to come.

Enhancing Your Arguments

One of the best tips we can give you regarding this exciting new tool is to use it to enhance your arguments, especially with persuasive papers. Many students are able to formulate a basic essay-style homework task, but when it comes time to back up their arguments with irrefutable proof, they aren’t the best at doing that.

What you want is for the chatbot to enhance the depth of your argument to impress your professor. You might do that with prompts like:

  • Craft a persuasive argument that billionaires need to pay their fair share of taxes
  • Come up with compelling examples for why it’s important to protect the environment
  • Formulate an argument for why people need to support charitable institutions 

Keep in mind that all of the information the AI comes up with should be fact checked. This tech is not above embellishing or making things up sometimes.

Using ChatGPT for Essays: Getting the Citations Right

One of the key reasons to use Chat GPT for essays is so you can get the citations for your paper right. This is an area that some students struggle with, and you might not get the grade you want if you can’t do this part of an assignment properly.

You need to include research based on resources that back up all of your claims. ChatGPT can definitely help you with that, but you should know that the resources it suggests will not be the most up-to-date.

You might try a prompt like:

  • Create a list of five resources that can be used for research on a paper about the 9/11 World Trade Center Attack
  • Give me at least three resources to help me draft an essay about why dogs make great companions

Don’t forget about fact-checking here, too. We couldn’t find the first article in the issue mentioned by chatGPT.

You might also try a prompt like “What type of resources can I use for a paper on Martin Luther King” if you don’t require exact resources. You could try one like “Use MLA format for the listed resources” if you would like them formatted in a specific way.

How to Ask ChatGPT to Write an Essay Summary

It’s always possible that after crafting a ChatGPT essay, you have gone over the word limit your instructor gave you. Maybe you went over the word count while writing on your own instead.

In either case, you might ask the bot to summarize your project. Part of how to use Chat GPT to write an essay can be requesting that it create a brief but detailed breakdown of a particular section.

You might give a prompt like “Summarize the following text,” and then copy and paste the section that you need summarized. Then, you can handle the necessary modifications based on that.

The Editorial Process

When someone asks the question, “can ChatGPT write essays,” what they may want is help with the editorial process. You might type in a request for the chatbot to do one of the following:

  • Change the tone of this essay so that it sounds more academic
  • Make the tone sound more lighthearted and less somber
  • Make this paper more in line with recent findings about this subject

chatgpt essay editor

Here we asked chat to rewrite the paragraph so it would be easier to read and understand. As you can see, regardless of the complexity of the topic, it’s much easier to understand the paragraph.

You can probably think of more examples of how to utilize Chat GPT to write essay additions if your paper is lacking or to alter the tone so it fits your assignment parameters more closely. This used to be something that you would have to do on your own, but now your handy online helper can assist you. Your revisions should not take anywhere near as long as they once did.

How to Write an Essay with ChatGPT Without Failing

At this point, we should mention that any ChatGPT essay example you turn in might very well get a failing grade if your professor specifically told you not to use it and you ignored those instructions. This is most likely to happen if you had this technology create your entire paper, and then you turned it in without making any changes or revisions.

This tech is by no means perfect yet, and it can make mistakes. Those errors can be obvious to a professor who is knowledgeable about the subject matter they assigned to you. Watch out for:

  • Nonexistent resources or authors
  • Plagiarized content
  • Content that’s easily detectable as AI-generated by other artificial intelligence programs
  • Unreliable information
  • Papers that are always structured the same way

Any of these can be common reasons why your instructor might detect that you have used a bot to create some or all of your assignments.

ChatGPT Essay Writing Has Its Limitations

Writing a Chat GPT essay and turning it in without altering its structure, fact-checking all of the resources it gave you, bypassing AI detection, or assuming that none of it is plagiarized are all ways your improper use of this technology can be found out by a professor. Since we’re living in a time when this type of online helper is widely available, instructors in academia are always on the lookout for traces of it.

[Universities] are also working to adopt AI detection tools and other resources to manage the intersection of AI technology and higher education.
Texas A&M University-Commerce

That is why our service on the MyStylus website is superior to using traditional ChatGPT. Our tech is simply more advanced than any service you will find elsewhere. The main reason for that is because our bespoke software system was trained in the use of academic-style writing. It is always ready to complete a task for you that is ahead of anything other algorithms or software systems can produce.

myStylus academic writer

The papers we give you look and sound as though they were written by humans. Our chatbot has ready-to-use sources from which it can harvest information to craft a deliverable that is certain to impress even the toughest graders.

Resources

  • Baskin, K. (2024, March 29). Is a robot writing your kids’ essays? We talk to educators about AI. BostonGlobe.com. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/03/29/lifestyle/is-robot-writing-your-kids-essays/
  • Tenjarla, P. V. R. (2024, January 8). Can ChatGPT write a college admission essay? We tested it. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2024/chatgpt-college-essay-ai-harvard-admission/
  • Klee, M. (2023, May 17). Professor flunks all his students after ChatGPT falsely claims it wrote their papers. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/texas-am-chatgpt-ai-professor-flunks-students-false-claims-1234736601/

FAQ

  • Can Chat GPT Edit Essays?

    Yes, you can use this tech for help with the editorial process. You might draft an outline yourself before turning it over to the chatbot for a thorough revision. Many students use the bot this way. 
  • Can I Learn How to Write an Essay with Chat GPT?

    Yes, you should be able to learn how to do it with a minimum of difficulty. Once you master the basics, you can ask the bot virtually anything, and you can formulate the request in many different ways. The more specific you get with your requests, the more likely you will get a result that matches what you were looking for.

  • Can I Learn How to Get ChatGPT to Write Longer Essays?

    You can get the tech to craft compelling essays of any length. You might have a brief three-page paper with citations that needs to be done tomorrow, or perhaps you’ve got a 50-page dissertation that is due soon. Either way, if you learn how to formulate a request for the bot, you can get the help you need.
  • Can You Use Chat GPT to Write Essays?

    Learning how to use these helper bots to do your homework is something that is becoming more widely accepted with each passing day. There is no kind of homework assignment that the AI can’t help you with.
  • Is It Likely That I Will Get Caught If My Professor Told Me to Write a Paper on My Own?

    What’s most likely to get you caught is if you turn in a paper that the AI wrote for you, and you didn’t bother to fact check or revise the deliverable at all. If you check for plagiarism, check all the sources, and do similar due diligence, that makes it far less likely a teacher will know you used a chatbot for help.
  • Is It Dishonest to Do This?

    Some individuals feel like they should not use this type of helper if they are assigned some homework from a teacher. That is completely up to you. Nothing says you must rely on this kind of assistance, but you should also know that many of your fellow students will likely be using it. We feel that there’s nothing unethical about getting a little extra help if you need it.

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