Using AI in your final-year project without breaking your school’s rules

Start with your school’s rules

Rules differ between universities, faculties and even supervisors. Some allow AI for drafting with disclosure; some only for language editing; some not at all. Before you start:

• Read your department’s project handbook and any university policy on AI.
• Ask your supervisor directly how they want you to use AI tools, and whether to declare it.
• If in doubt, ask in writing and keep the reply.

Whatever the rules, your name goes on the project and you answer for everything in it.

Generally acceptable

• Finding sources: searching for real papers on your topic and reading them.
• Planning: getting an outline suited to your topic and department.
• Drafting with your input: drafting from your brief, your data and your notes, then rewriting the draft yourself.
• Improving your writing: clearer sentences, better flow, correct grammar.
• Understanding: asking for an explanation of a concept, a method or a calculation.
• Formatting: references, table of contents, numbering and page layout.

Not acceptable

• Invented data: results, survey responses or measurements you didn’t collect. This is research misconduct, whatever tool produced it.
• Fake references: citing papers that don’t exist or that you haven’t looked at.
• Submitting text you haven’t read or can’t explain.
• Hiding AI use when your school asks you to declare it.
• Tricks to fool detectors. These are treated as deliberate cheating.

Keep your own voice

A draft is a starting point. Make it yours:

• Rewrite paragraphs in the way you would explain them to a classmate.
• Add what only you know: your location, your sample, the problems you hit, what surprised you.
• Write some sections yourself from scratch, especially the introduction to each chapter and your discussion of results.

Select any sentence and choose Improve to tidy your own writing without replacing it.

Be ready to defend it

At your defence, you will be asked why you chose your method, what a calculation means, or what a cited author found. If you can’t answer, it doesn’t matter who wrote the sentence. Before you submit, ask InkScribe to explain anything you’re unsure of, in plain words:

Then try it out loud, without looking. If you stumble, read the sources again.

Show what you wrote

If your supervisor asks how you used AI, you can show them. InkScribe records who produced each paragraph as you work: what you typed, what it drafted, what you edited, and what was pasted in. Open Tools → Plagiarism & AI check → Authorship:

Use Copy summary to paste it into a declaration or an email. The goal isn’t a particular number; it’s being able to show honestly how the project was made.

Sources and honesty

• Open and read the key papers you cite, at least the abstract and the findings you rely on.
• Check that each citation supports the sentence it’s attached to.
• Add the papers your supervisor recommends by DOI or title, so they are cited where they belong.

In short

1. Know your school’s rules, and follow them.
2. Use AI to research, plan, draft and improve, not to replace your thinking.
3. Never invent data or references.
4. Read, rewrite and understand everything you submit.
5. Be open about how you used it.