Accused of using AI? Show how you wrote it.

If you are accused: what to do first

1. Reply calmly, in writing. Say that you wrote the paper yourself and that you want to understand the concern. Keep it short. Anger reads badly in an email that may be forwarded.
2. Ask for the specific evidence. Which passages, which tool, and what it reported. If a detector flagged it, ask to see the report itself, not just a percentage.
3. Ask for the policy. The course AI policy in the syllabus, your school’s academic integrity policy, and the process: who decides, what the deadlines are, and how you can respond or appeal.
4. Gather your history before you meet. Version history from Google Docs or Word, your outline and notes, the sources you read, earlier drafts you emailed or saved, and anything with a date on it. Delete nothing.
5. Ask to talk it through. Offer to walk through how you built the argument, why you chose each source, and what you changed between drafts. Knowing your own paper well is strong evidence.
6. Bring someone in. An academic advisor, the dean of students office or a student ombuds can explain the process and your options. Some schools let you bring an advisor to a formal meeting; your policy says whether yours does.

Two things not to do. Do not run the paper through other detectors to get a better number: it is still an estimate, and a worse one would not help you. And do not rewrite the paper to change its score; the original, with its history, is your evidence.

What a detector score can and cannot show

AI detectors estimate how likely text is to be machine-written. They do not see how you wrote it. Some public facts worth knowing, each with its source:

• OpenAI shut down its own detector. Its AI classifier stopped being available on July 20, 2023, “due to its low rate of accuracy” (OpenAI).
• Vanderbilt turned off Turnitin’s AI detector in August 2023. It noted that Turnitin’s stated 1% false positive rate could have meant around 750 of the 75,000 papers it submitted in 2022 being wrongly labeled (Vanderbilt University).
• Michigan State’s guidance says AI writing detection tools “might not always be accurate” and “should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student” (Michigan State University).
• A 2023 study in the journal Patterns found that GPT detectors “consistently misclassify non-native English writing samples as AI-generated” (Liang and others).

None of this means your instructor is wrong to ask questions. It means a score alone settles nothing, and your process is what answers the question.

Turnitin is a trademark of Turnitin, LLC. Format is not affiliated with Turnitin or any detector.

Show your version history from Google Docs or Word

Google Docs

• Open the document and select the Last edit text at the top right, or press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H (Cmd+Option+Shift+H on a Mac) (Google).
• Each version shows when it was saved and who edited it, with the changes highlighted. Name the versions that matter (first outline, first full draft) so they are easy to find.
• Only people who can edit a document see its version history, so show it on your own screen, or take dated screenshots of key versions.

Microsoft Word

• Version history works for files saved in OneDrive or SharePoint: open the file and go to File, Info, Version History, or select the file name at the top and choose Version history (Microsoft).
• A file saved only on your computer has no version list there. With a school account, how far back it goes is set by your school, and an administrator can turn it off.

Other evidence counts too: an outline, notes, a research folder, library checkouts, and emails to yourself or a classmate with drafts attached all carry dates.

How Format keeps the record next time

Format is a writing app for college papers with no AI writing tools in it. As you write, it saves every change to the paper with the time it was made, and marks each character as typed or pasted. Imported files count as pasted. It does this on every plan, with or without an account.

Writing report

A PDF with the title, your name, course and instructor; the word count; time spent writing (pauses over a minute left out); the number of sessions (a gap over 30 minutes starts a new one); the share typed and pasted; the dates you wrote it; a chart of how the paper grew; every pasted passage of 20 characters or more, marked cited or not; and the replay link with a QR code.

Replay link

A page anyone with the link can open to watch the paper being written, edit by edit, with the time of each edit. Pasted text is marked. It plays at 1x, 10x or 60x, or skips the pauses, and opens on the finished paper.

Writing together

In a shared paper, each person’s typing and pasting is credited to them in both.

In the app, open View, Proof you wrote it, or Export, Writing report. The record is kept on every plan; making the report and the replay link is part of Pro, with a 7-day free trial for new accounts.

The replay shows your whole paper and every edit, so give the link only to the people who need it. Making a new link turns the old one off, and so does deleting the paper.

What a record cannot show

• It shows how the text was entered, not who thought of it. Someone could type out words from another source, and the record would show them typed.
• It starts when the paper starts in Format. Writing done elsewhere and brought in shows as pasted, in one piece. For that part, your Google Docs or Word history is the record.
• It is evidence, not a verdict. Your instructor and school decide what they accept. A record works best alongside being able to talk through your own work.
• Pasted is not wrong. Quotations and your own notes are pasted too. The report shows whether each pasted passage has a citation.

Questions