Summaries: GAI vs. Human

Tiffany Buckingham Barney

Assignments & Activities Archive

Activity Description

As generative artificial intelligence (GAI) makes its way into academia, it is imperative that students are given time to explore its capabilities and limitations. Exploring the use of GAI for academic purposes is best done in an academic setting with guidance from instructors. Just as important as this exploration is the opportunity to discuss the importance of authorship, validity, and appropriate use. The following summary producing activity is designed to put AI in students’ hands in an open and guided situation and to facilitate these much needed conversations. By doing so, students are able to identify qualities of summaries that are both strong and weak, thus strengthening their own summarizing skills. This may meet learning outcome objectives for summary instruction in basic writing and first-year-writing courses.