AI-Assisted Self-Assessment of Essay Type Descriptive Answers

 

[Video recording of the live session]

Transcript for the "Essay Type Answer Writing | Error Analysis & AI-assisted Self-assessment | Academic Writing Workshop" by Merlin and organised by Chat GPT

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to another installment of our academic writing workshop series. These workshops have become a tradition, occurring at the close of each semester following our internal tests. It's a time when teachers meticulously review your answer scripts, pinpointing common errors for discussion. But beyond this, it's a chance for you to engage in a crucial aspect of academic growth: self-assessment.

Self-assessment involves more than just glancing over your work; it requires a deep dive into your writing, identifying both obvious mistakes and subtler nuances that often escape notice. Consider creating PDFs of your answer books, allowing for ongoing reflection and improvement, whether you're at home or in the hostel. While AI tools can assist in this process, it's essential to remember that they're just that—tools. Our ultimate goal is to maintain and enhance our own writing abilities, not to become overly reliant on technology.

As we transition into discussing the role of AI in our workshops, it's important to strike a balance. While AI offers valuable insights and can even serve as a personalized tutor, it's not without its limitations. Over-reliance on AI runs the risk of diminishing our own linguistic capabilities. Our workshops aim to harness the benefits of AI while ensuring that human judgment and creativity remain at the forefront.

In analyzing sample answers, we aim to bridge the gap between proficiency and excellence. By leveraging both AI insights and human discernment, we can identify areas for improvement and chart a course towards advanced levels of writing proficiency. Practical exercises are integral to this process, allowing you to apply feedback and refine your approach iteratively.

As we conclude today's workshop, I encourage you to continue honing your writing skills beyond these sessions. The journey towards academic excellence is ongoing, and your commitment to self-assessment and improvement will undoubtedly pay dividends in the long run. Thank you for your participation, and don't forget to complete the assigned activities.

The highlights of the session:

Mastering Essay Writing: Error Analysis & AI-powered Self-Assessment

This blog post summarizes an academic writing workshop focused on improving essay writing through error analysis and AI-assisted self-assessment.

Introduction

The workshop addresses a common challenge: the gap between internal assessments (where improvement is possible) and final exams (where it's not). It emphasizes the importance of strong writing skills and explores how AI tools can enhance self-assessment without diminishing human writing ability.

Challenges of Traditional Error Analysis

Personalized feedback can be time-consuming for teachers.

Replicating student answers with high-quality variations is difficult for humans.

AI as a Solution

Generative AI offers one-on-one tutoring through feedback suggestions.

AI excels at analyzing student writing and suggesting improvements.

Cautions and Best Practices

Overreliance on AI can hinder independent writing development.

Critical thinking skills remain essential, and AI should not replace them.

University exams typically require writing without AI assistance.

Benefits of AI-assisted Self-Assessment

Identifies areas for improvement (e.g., grammar, mechanics, clarity).

Elevates writing quality from B1/B2 to C1/C2 levels (CEFR framework).

Provides suggestions for stronger introductions, conclusions, and stances.

Workshop Activity

1. Analyze Past Errors: Review feedback from teachers on past exams.
2. Select an Answer: Choose an answer you wrote for a previous internal assessment.
3. AI Feedback: Upload a photocopy/PDF of your answer to a designated AI tool.
4. Prompt Selection: Clearly state you are a postgraduate student seeking a high academic level response.
5. Self-Assessment: Analyze the AI's suggestions and compare them to your original writing.
6. Continuous Improvement: Practice writing and self-assessment throughout the semester, aiming for excellence without AI dependence.

Conclusion

This workshop equips students with the tools and strategies to become self-sufficient, confident essay writers. By combining traditional error analysis with AI-powered feedback, students can elevate their writing skills and achieve academic success.

Academic Writing - Essay Type Descriptive Answers

 Academic Writing in English for Examination Purpose

In this post, you will find two videos. These videos are prepared for the students of English Studies. These students are supposed to write descriptive essay type answers in their term-end university examinations. With an objective to improve the quality of their essay type descriptive answers, these guidelines from suggested.

Video 1: Qualitative Error Analysis and Suggestions to Improve the Quality of Writing Essay Type Descriptive Answers

In this video, teachers are discussing common errors made by students in writing essay type descriptive answers. 

Following topics are discussed in this session:

Error Analysis & Suggestions to improve the quality of Essay Type Descriptive Answers. 1. Correctness of English Language: (i) No grammar errors. (ii) No spelling errors. (iii) Apt vocabulary. (iv) Apt sentence structure. (v) Apt punctuation marks 2. Content of the Answer (i) Quotes from original text. (ii) Quotes from critics. (iii) Apt illustrations from the text. (iv) Do not write summary 3. Organisation of the Answer (i) The question is properly justified and exemplified. (ii) The trajectory of the answer is very well worked out. (iii) The arguments are well justified with illustrations from the text. (iv) Logical sequence is maintained. Introduction to conclusion – all well synced. (v) Apt connectors used for the ease of flow of thoughts from one para to another. 4. Handwriting (i) Cursive, larger, clearly visible, clean and tidy. (ii) Legible. No difficulty in identifying alphabets.

Chapterization of Video 1:

0:00 Introduction 4:35 Vaidehi Hariyani 26:30 Dilip Barad 1:16:09 Suggestions to Improve the Quality of Writing

Video 2: Quantitative Analysis: How Much Shall I Write in Essay Type Descriptive Answers?

Quite often, the students come with the question - How much are we supposed to write in essay type descriptive answers? or - How many words shall an essay type answer consist of? or - In how many pages an essay type answer is supposed to be written?

In this video, we have reviewed several guidelines and have suggested a sort of 'golden mean'.

Chapterization of Video 2:

0:00 Introduction 2:18 The Context - Students' anxiety - How much shall we write? 5:26 Quality matters . . . so also quantity. 6:48 Murray and Orii's Automatic Essay Scoring 8:22 Perelman criticized over-privileging length of answer 10:04 Average speech of hand-writing 12:48 Length of answer does have some association with marks 17:35 Calcutta Uni - Pattern 18:40 Students' sample write-ups 22:55 Final Outcome and Recommendations 34:35 Conclusion 35:30 Students responses

Following points are taken into consideration in this video:

Tom Benton [Cambridge Assessment, Research Division]: “I remember this question being asked by someone in the class nearly every time… Despite the ubiquity of the question, clear answers are hard to come by.”

Previous research has shown that the length of responses does have some association with achievement and also provided some norms around the possible writing speed.

Tom Benton’s study shows that –

“Nearly all responses of fewer than 200 words resulted in a grade U, suggesting that whilst very long answers are not necessary for a good mark, candidates must write enough to make sure that the examiner can recognize their knowledge at all.”

With this in mind it would be a good advice for all candidates, even those who are not expecting to achieve the highest grades, to ensure that they write at least a significant number of pages in response to an English Literature exam question allowing 30 minutes to write descriptive answer.

But exactly how long shall a student write?

How many words shall an answer consist of?

How many pages or lines shall be produced in writing descriptive answer?

Conclusion:

It is expected that these videos will help students in qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of their academic writing for the purpose of essay-type-descriptive answers. If students will work on the guidelines and suggestions discussed in these videos, we are hopeful that our learning objective i.e. improve the quality of answers and academic writing, shall be achieved.

Video recording of live session: 8 Dec '23

Video recording of live session: 23 April '23

Work submission form:

After watching the instructions in above given video, submit your work in this online form: https://forms.gle/7oceL5ztxEH8cyFF8