For me, writing takes time. Writing concisely takes even longer.
Throughout Unit 1, Theories, Policies and Practices, I have found myself wanting to unpack ideas in depth: exploring pedagogical approaches, questioning my own teaching practice, connecting references that I am discovering and mapping my learning across these. This reflective process is exciting, yet it challenges the requirements to be succinct and produce blog posts of no more than 500 words. Respecting the word limit has been a challenge, asking me to omit key details, reasoning and deeply personal reflections that I initially wanted to include.
I often managed to edit text down to around 700/600 words, but to reduce it further and condense it to stay within the 550-word allowance, I began using AI. This is why I have decided to write this short post to describe my use of AI in my writing process. I used Copilot to help me condense my texts. I chose Copilot as it is the institutionally supported Ai tool, where the prompts are protected as UAL has a licence with Microsoft/Open AI.
My process has been: drafting my texts, shorten them myself as much as possible, creating multiple drafts and then ask the AI to further condense the text prompting it to only using my own words, without generating new content. I asked the tool to highlight any sections it compressed, so I could compare the condensed version to my text and decide on where and whether to retain the AI suggestions. After this process, I edit the text again where I feel the meaning, emphasis or tone has shifted, as I notice AI often removes nuance or personal intention.
Working in this way allowed me to produce several drafts of the same text. What I noticed, engaging in this process is that this editing practice can take quite a long time, often even longer than doing it myself. Despite acknowledging this, I find this process valuable: it gives me another perspective on my writing, prompts my critical reflection on my own writing and the AI writing and helps me strengthen my written English, which is not my first language.
My understanding of responsible AI use is informed by UAL’s institutional guidance (University of the Arts London, 2025).
I believe that, provided this process is transparent, similarly to other digital tools (i.e. inbuilt Microsoft Word Spellchecker and Grammar Check or Synonyms suggestions), Copilot is helpful to support proofreading and condensing text.
Note: At the end of the blogs where I have used AI to further condense the text, I have added a note to declare the use of Copilot and explain why I used it.
References:
University of the Arts London (2025) Our Position Statement on AI. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/learning-and-teaching/digital-learning/ai-and-education/ai-position-statement (Accessed: 17 March 2026)
Further reading:
University of the Arts London (2025) Referencing and Academic Misconduct. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/course-regulations/referencing-and-academic-misconduct (Accessed: 17 March 2026).