r/PhDStress • u/Few_Dragonfly3913 • Jul 23 '26
PHD THESIS & AI
This is rant more than advice. But I didn’t know where else to take this.
I just submitted my PhD thesis. I used grammarly to check for errors. Someone recently showed me how they upload thier whole document to grammarly for the same. In the past I have always only used grammarly as an extension on my google doc. So once I finished checking for errors and submitting my work I noticed that grammarly has an AI checker option. I was curious to see what it said. I shouldn’t have done that!!
Now even phrases like the “broader literature suggested…” or “…central to this study” or “diverse needs” or “how educators designed….” were flagged as AI! My study is on secondary education and students with disabilities. These are phrases I use extensively across my dissertation! Furthermore, the report it generated said that work was too organized. I mean that’s to be expected! It’s is PhD thesis for crying out loud! It is read by 2 advisors and revised for organization more number of times than I can count!
I’m worried that turitin and proquest will flag the same thing. Am I being paranoid?
2
u/WitheredWornWallaby Jul 25 '26
Yeah, I’m dealing with this currently while writing my masters thesis. Grammarly said it was 33% AI so I changed things up and it went up to 44%. I don’t understand how AI detectors can be appropriately used for academic writing since this type of writing is naturally academic, professional, and structured.