Academic asked to de-AI his writing responds with an essay co-written with Claude
hoofnagle · x · 2026-10-15
In a Chronicle of Higher Education essay titled "Who Cares Whether Academics Use AI to Write?", an academic argues analytical writing should be judged by quality, not provenance. The trigger: a journal accepted his article, then asked him to resubmit "in my voice" because some sentences "read like something written by AI" — or let editors "humanize" it.
He reveals the essay itself was drafted in extended collaboration with Claude Fable 5.1, despite Chronicle's freelancer policy demanding work be "written by you, not AI." He uses the episode to critique a confusion now running through academia: judging writing by its resemblance to AI rather than its analytical merit.
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