Chapter 10: Editing, Formatting, and AI Disclosure

What You Will Make

Prepare a checked submission file and a record of any assistance that the assignment requires you to disclose. Editing comes after the major argument revisions, so you spend time polishing material you intend to keep.

Use Separate Final Passes

Read once for sentence boundaries, missing words, punctuation, and consistent spelling. Read again against the sources: confirm exact quotations, locators, and citation entries. Then compare the document with the required length, headings, spacing, file format, and filename.

Use the required citation style rather than combining conventions from different guides. The document setup page offers general checks, but your teacher’s specifications govern. Reopen an exported PDF and inspect its pages; a correct-looking working document does not prove the export is correct.

Write an Accurate Assistance Note

Fictional example: A teacher permits AI-generated questions about a student’s outline but prohibits generated essay wording. A student uses a tool to suggest three objections, investigates them, and writes the essay independently.

A possible disclosure, if it truthfully describes the work, is: “I used [tool and version] on [date] to suggest questions about my outline. I checked those questions against the assigned text and wrote the submitted essay myself.” Replace the brackets with actual information and use the teacher’s required location and format.

If the tool also rewrote sentences, that note would be incomplete. Record the actual use and resolve any conflict with the teacher’s policy. Disclosure does not make prohibited assistance acceptable. If instructions are unclear, ask instead of inventing a universal placement rule.

Try It Yourself

Make three short checklists: wording, sources, and submission file. Review one paragraph against its source and open the final file from the folder you will submit from.

Repair example: The draft quotes “After he left” correctly, but the exported file drops quotation marks during an edit. Restore them, export again, and recheck that passage in the new file.

Check Your Work

• Does each quotation match the source and have the required citation?
• Have you resolved comments and tracked changes as required?
• Does any disclosure describe what actually happened?
• Can you open the correct version and read every page?

Keep the editable document as well as the submission copy so later corrections remain possible.