Finding Your Voice: Using Generative AI to Help International Students Improve Writing

Students are faced with a wide range of writing tasks during their studies, including literature reviews, summarising papers and reflective reports. The writing tasks present a challenge for students who are not writing in their native language due to studying overseas. Indeed, students writing in their native language have a distinct advantage in assignments involving writing. The rapid emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen-AI) over the past three years has the potential to significantly impact the quality and efficiency of writing of non-native English speakers by providing international students with an opportunity to minimise the language barrier when writing in academia. This paper reports on a series of structured exercises undertaken by the authors to determine how using Gen-AI tools built on large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Claude might improve their writing in the context of computing degrees. We analyse some issues to be aware of when using Gen-AI tools and make suggestions as to their effective use. The key underlying message is that students need to develop their own distinct voice.