Writing a disclosure that helps you

Specific beats vague, always

A disclosure statement is a factual account of what you did. Vague statements make markers suspicious; specific ones close the question.

Compare:

AI was used in the preparation of this assignment.

against

I used a language model in two ways. Before drafting, I asked it to generate practice questions on the reading to test my understanding; none of that output appears here. After drafting, I pasted my complete draft and the mark scheme and asked which criteria were weakest; I acted on two of its four suggestions by rewriting my third and fifth paragraphs myself. All prose, all argument and all source selection are my own, and I obtained and read every source cited.

The first invites a question. The second answers it. It takes ninety seconds to write and it is the cheapest protection available.

What to include

• Which tool, and roughly when.
• What you asked it to do, by stage: before, during, or after drafting.
• What happened to the output. Used, discarded, acted on by rewriting yourself.
• What is unambiguously yours. Argument, structure, prose, source selection.
• The verification claim. That you obtained and read every source.

That last line matters more than the rest combined, because unread sources is the actual offence in most cases.

Three worked examples

Minimal use.

AI use: I used a language model to check spelling and grammar in prose I wrote, and to generate revision questions while preparing. No generated text appears in this submission. All sources cited were obtained and read.

Substantial permitted use.

AI use: I used a model to explain two methods sections I could not follow (papers 4 and 7 in the reference list), to suggest which statistical test suited my design (the choice and the justification in section 3.2 are mine), and to critique the structure of my draft. The analysis was run in jamovi. All writing is my own; all sources were obtained and read.

Code.

AI use: I used an assistant to explain error messages and to explain an unfamiliar library function. I wrote all submitted code and all tests. Two functions were revised after the assistant identified a boundary condition I had missed; the revisions are mine. Commit history is in the repository.

Notice all three are short, factual, and unapologetic. A disclosure is not a confession.

Where to put it

Where the brief says. If it does not say: a short paragraph after the references, headed Statement on AI use. In a repository, in the README and referenced in the submission.

If your institution provides a form or a declaration box, use theirs and do not substitute your own wording.

The thing a disclosure cannot do

It does not make a prohibited use permitted. Declaring that you generated the essay does not turn generating the essay into acceptable practice under a policy that forbids it; it makes the finding faster.

It also does not cover what it does not mention. A disclosure that omits a use you made is worse than none, because it is now an inaccurate statement rather than an absent one, and that changes the character of the matter substantially.

So: disclose everything you actually did, including the things you feel slightly uncomfortable about. If a use is uncomfortable to write down, that discomfort is the information: it is telling you something about the use, and the moment to act on it is before submission.

Disclose generously

When in doubt, include it. There is no penalty anywhere for declaring a permitted use, and there is a real penalty for omitting one that mattered. Over-disclosure costs you two extra sentences.

And write it as you go, not at the end. A note in your working file each time you use a tool takes five seconds and means the statement is accurate rather than reconstructed from memory the night before, when everybody forgets the thing they did in week two.

The test of a good disclosure

Could your marker, reading it, tell exactly what you did without asking you a follow-up question? If yes, it is sufficient. If they would need to ask but did you write the prose, it is not, and you should add the sentence that answers it.