Scholarly Communications & Publishing

AI and Publishing

With the rise of AI many publishers have begun crafting AI policy statements to help researchers better understand what is acceptable use for AI in the writing process. While this guide is here to give you foundational knowledge of the topic please be sure to do your own research on specific publisher requirements. 

Authors of scholarly work are not only responsible for writing their own work, but must also take things like ethics and legal responsibility into consideration when publishing. Remember YOU are responsible for the work generated by an AI, be sure to understand the personal, social, legal, and professional ramifications of using AI in your work. 

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has been working to help guide writers and researchers in their use of AI. They have complied resources and research on AI in academic publishing that can be found by clicking here. 

According to the Authorsguild.org:

"...please be aware that, for now, all of the major large language models (LLMs)— generative AI for text—are based on hundreds of thousands or more books and countless articles stolen from pirate websites. This is the largest mass copyright infringement of authors’ works ever, and it was done by some of the richest companies in the world." 

How AI can Assist with Writing & Publishing

AI is a tool - how you use it matters. Always be sure to check with professional and publisher guidelines before using any AI to assist you in publishing. AI can assist with:

• Writing assistance
  • Brainstorming ideas
  • Creating an outline or writing plan
  • Translation*
  • Searching and research assistance
    • Brainstorming keywords
    • Suggesting sources to search
  • Summarization and data analysis*
• AI as Writing Partner
  • Using AI to generate text or characters
  • Using AI to bounce ideas off of 

*Please note: AI is NOT 100% reliable and may not accurately perform the tasks you assign it. VERIFY all work done by an AI. 

Ethical Use of AI in Writing

Here is a list of ethical considerations to take into account before you begin using AI:

1. Anything generated/written by AI is not copyrightable, as it is neither original nor art. Using AI to write something for you does not make you a writer - it makes you a prompter. Use AI to support your work - not generate it for you. If you do use AI to generate work, you should be rewriting it in your own voice. 
   1. Be careful not to plagiarize yourself. Even if you train an AI to "write in your voice" or copy your style - you may end up plagiarizing your own words or still may not be able to copyright the generated work. 
2. Disclose any/all use of AI to your publisher/ publishing contract holder, employer, readership base, etc. You may be in violation of a contract if you do not disclose AI use in the work. The more transparent you are of AI use the better. 
3. Review, verify, and edit any/all AI work. AI is not 100% reliable and can make up anything to sound plausible. Do not trust it blindly. 
4. Evaluate the AI generated work for biases. AI is trained on a wide range of material that may have its own agendas, biases, tones, ideas, and issues - do not perpetuate harmful rhetoric by failing to read the generated work. 
5. Respect the ideas, voice, style, etc of other authors and their works - do not ask AI to copy or repeat someone else. 
6. Assert your rights as an author. Many publishers now offer a clause that allows authors to state that their work should not be used to further train AIs without the author's permission. 

If you have suggestions for how to make this page better, please contact Elizabeth Jerow, Library Director (jerow@msoe.edu).