Chapter 13Before you share
A last look before you share
Before AI-assisted work goes to someone else, run down a short list. The list is the book’s advice, gathered from this chapter and the ones around it:
- The facts, numbers, names, and quotes are checked (Chapter 12).
- Every source it cites has been opened and read (Chapter 12).
- Nothing private is in it that shouldn’t travel (Chapter 10).
- It is cut to what this reader needs, with the main point first.
- It says what it is, what was checked, and what it doesn’t cover.
- It says how AI helped, where the reader would want to know.
- It says what you mean, and you would sign it (Chapter 14).
None of this takes long for an everyday email. But for a report a client will act on, it is most of the work, and it is the part no AI tool can do for you.
I have found this true in my own work. When a job needs a lot of precision and touches many different pieces, I stay in the loop and keep track of the details. I watch what the AI is doing, which tools it uses, and what the harness lets through. That protects the integrity of the work. It also means I end up with something I can own and represent as mine, or at least be open that it came from me working together with AI. This book is a strong example: The Preface says how we worked, and Appendix D says how every fact was checked.
Try it: tick off the list, then build a short note on how AI helped.
Your turn
Try it. Ask any AI chat tool you already use for a short email about a real task, such as telling a team about a schedule change. Or take a draft you recently wrote with AI help, and count its words. Mark the line that answers each of the three questions, and strike every line that answers none of them. Count again. Then add one line saying what it is and what you checked, and one saying how AI helped. On paper, do the same with a long email from your own inbox. Did the cut version lose anything a reader needed, or turn up a gap?
Think about it. Think of the people who read your work, such as a manager, clients, students, or a patient’s family. Which of them would want to know that AI helped, and what would they want to know about it? How would they feel if they heard it from someone else?
What, then, do you owe the person who reads an AI-assisted draft? You owe them the work that makes the draft worth their time. Their draft should be cut to what they need, with the main point first, and checked, with a plain word about what it is and how AI helped. That leaves a harder question, the one the Vanderbilt apology raised. The apology suggested that some work shouldn’t be handed to an AI tool at all, however well you check and label it. Which work is that? Chapter 14 offers a way to sort that work out.
Check in
Try answering in your own words, then open each one to compare.read the answer to compare.
Why does putting the main point first and cutting the rest help a reader?
Busy readers scan. In Morkes and Nielsen’s 1997 studies, most participants scanned unfamiliar text before reading it, and a version of a website cut to about half the words scored 58 percent higher on measured usability. What comes first is what a reader is most likely to see.
Why do publishing-ethics groups say an AI tool can’t be listed as an author?
Because it can’t take responsibility for the work, as COPE puts it. Authors disclose how they used the tool instead, and they remain responsible for everything in the work, including the parts the tool produced.
An HR manager used an AI tool to draft a one-page summary of a new leave policy for staff. She checked it against the policy itself, but not against state law. What should the top of her email say?
What it is (a summary, not the policy itself), what was checked (the policy text), and what it doesn’t cover (state law). Then the main change first, and a line saying an AI tool drafted the summary and she checked it.
Your AI-assisted summary for a client quotes a sentence and gives a percentage from an industry report. Before you send it, how do you check each one? (This goes back to Chapter 12.)
Match the check to the claim. Open the report and find the sentence word for word, and find the percentage there too, redoing any math. If you can’t find either one, cut it.
A colleague says, “Research shows people trust you less if you admit AI helped, so I never mention it.” Is that a sound conclusion?
Only half. In Schilke and Reimann’s experiments, disclosing did lower trust, even with careful wording. But being exposed by someone else lowered it further, and many schools, journals, and employers require disclosure anyway. The better answer is to make the work worth trusting and say plainly what you did.
Chapter 13 · page 5 of 5
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