How To Not Get Caught Using ChatGPT?

ChatGPT - who doesn't know about it these days? Everyone and their mothers are using it, whether for assignments, work or just to get an opinion on things. Students swear by it to meet deadlines, marketers use it to craft catchy copy (who do you think wrote this blog post?), and we’re pretty sure you use it as well.

But hold on a second, there's a dark side to this genius AI assistant. While ChatGPT can be a tempting shortcut for assignments and work projects, it's easy to get caught red-handed if you're not careful. Plagiarism and AI detectors like Turnitin and GPTZero have gotten seriously sophisticated. That means schools and workplaces are getting pretty good at sniffing out AI-generated content.

But don't worry – although AI detectors are smart, we can still outsmart them. Here are your top 4 tips to avoid getting caught using ChatGPT.

1. It’s Your Brainstorm Buddy, Not A Writing Machine

Yes, ChatGPT is technically a robot, but treat it as your brainstorming partner. Give it some ideas, ask questions and use its suggestions to get your own creative juices flowing. We know, seeing how ChatGPT writes things, it feels like nothing we write can be better. But trust us, that’s not the case. ChatGPT is so overused these days that you can read something and immediately know it was ChatGPT-written.

2. Paraphrase, Paraphrase, Paraphrase!

ChatGPT may be able to write a killer essay, but most of the time, it can sound a bit… robotic. That’s exactly why you need to paraphrase whatever ChatGPT gives you. Replace words with their synonyms, restructure sentences and add a human touch to it. Most people would use another AI tool to paraphrase but we wouldn’t recommend that because most of them use similar GPT models as ChatGPT so it would get flagged anyway.

3. Always Fact-Check

While ChatGPT may be good at writing stuff, it’s not so good when it comes to factual accuracy. Here’s a fun prompt test you can put ChatGPT through:

“Write me a summary of an article in the ‘Journal of Toaster Repair’.”

That journal doesn’t even exist and yet, somehow ChatGPT will write you a summary of a nonexistent article. See? Caught.

So, always double-check the information you get from ChatGPT, especially you students out there. Plagiarism is not usually taken lightly in academia.

4. Be Very Specific With Prompting

It’s all about the prompts when it comes to ChatGPT. The more specific you are with your prompts, the less likely it is to generate generic or AI-sounding text. Provide details about the tone, style, and desired content to guide ChatGPT in the right direction and create a more natural, human-written feel.

Let’s say you want ChatGPT to write you an essay. Here’s what a bad prompt looks like:

“Write me an essay about the environmental impact of plastic pollution.”

This prompt is too broad, and ChatGPT will just write you a generic essay. Now here’s a better way to write the prompt:

“Write a persuasive essay about the environmental impact of plastic pollution. Focus on the negative effects of plastic pollution on both human health and marine life. Use strong emotional language and statistics to support your claims. Aim for a word count of 500 words.”

This prompt is much more specific. It outlines the essay type (persuasive), desired tone (emotional), specific content areas (human health, marine life), desired word count, and suggestions including statistics. This will help ChatGPT generate a more focused and relevant essay.

By following these tips, you can be a master at using ChatGPT without actually getting caught. Remember, ChatGPT is a tool, and like any tool, it's most effective when used strategically and responsibly.

For those of you who are keen to learn to use ChatGPT effectively, SOLS Foundation has these free online classes with beginner-friendly tips, including how to write prompts! Just click here to sign up.

P.S. This blog post was written by ChatGPT using specific prompts, fact-checked and paraphrased by a human *wink wink