AI writing is not scholarship because it is not committed to the truth, has no intended audience, and draws on stochastic archives (as opposed to research). #WhatMakesWritingAcademic #WhatMakesAcademicWritingHumane

#AcWri
#AcademicWriting

Summary Drawing from critical realism and building on previous academic studies and writing theories and practices, the author advances approaches to academic writing that are both human and humane, by situating academic writing within the broader critical realist project of furthering human flourishing and emancipation; of what it means to be human; and of why things matter to people. Addressing what counts as human(e) in academic writing has become pressing, as concerns about machine-generated texts, such as Large Language Models like ChatGPT challenge understandings of truth, knowledge, and justice. Underlying the argument in this chapter is the assumption that writing in the academy is a social practice (specifically, a method of enquiry) that should be oriented towards epistemic virtues including commitment to truth and socially just standards of excellence. For academic writing to fulfil such commitments, the author argues that it needs to be human(e). For it to be human(e), it requires a writer–agent–knower to rationally judge between educative and harmful academic writing theories and practices, in the interests of human flourishing and emancipation. Keywords academic writing being human dharma emancipation explanatory critique flourishing knowledge truth ubuntu

My thoughts on "What Makes Academic Writing Human(e): A Critical Realist Response" in: Bouchard & Zotzmann, eds. #CriticalRealism in #AppliedLinguistics #CambridgeUniversityPress 2026

#AcademicWriting
#WhatMakesWritingAcademic
#WhatMakesAcademicWritingHumane
#GenAI
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