I love a semicolon, and I love an em dash. They’re just so cute; I don’t know what it is. I also love a colon, and probably overuse parentheses. Problem is: apparently, so does ChatGPT.
I’ve always written like this. I’d dig up examples of my old writing to prove my point if that didn’t make me want to go neck-down on a guillotine (actually, I don’t think my old writing is that bad; it’s more of an I’m-too-lazy-to-do-that thing).
Ironically, I’m going to refer to Google’s AI quick search. I looked up, “how to know something is written by ai,” and what popped up? “Overly polished grammar.” Literally. But I like polished grammar! (I know I just started a sentence with “but,” and that’s a grammar no, but whatever.)
Even since I was a kid, incorrect grammar was always a pet peeve of mine; not in text messages—I’m not that annoying—except for wrong uses of “your” and “you’re,” or “to” and “too.” Those are egregious; grow up. Point is, I’ve always prided myself on my grammar, and I think my writing is stronger when I use all kinds of punctuation and dynamic sentences; it’s liberating to not limit myself to the use of only periods and commas.
Unfortunately, however, not everyone shares my annoyingly weird passion for em dashes, semicolons, and colons; and with the rise of AI in everyday use for people around the world—especially students in tedious, busy-work-heavy classes—professors have cracked down on detecting work created with AI. In almost every class syllabus I’ve read recently (yeah, I actually read those; I scope out attendance and late work policies), professors note that they can “almost always tell when a student turns in work produced by AI.”
There really is no point to this blog other than to express my frustration with AI stealing all my favorite punctuation marks, but in the interest of not sounding like a deranged, dramatic freak, I’ll provide an example:
Last term, my boyfriend and I took a class together—JCOM 370: PR Fundamentals. We had an assignment to summarize, analyze, and provide suggestions to strengthen a press release. This was early in the term, so I was still motivated and finished the assignment early. Being the fantastic girlfriend I am, I let him read it to get a better understanding of what the assignment entailed and the formatting. (I also made it pink, and I thought that was cute, too.) My work was beautifully written—in my opinion—and littered with all my favorite punctuation marks. He said, though, “This looks like ChatGPT.” Um, sorry I’m like really smart and enjoy writing!
Anyway, normalize semicolons, em dashes, and colons; I’d really love to not get expelled for lack of academic integrity. Thank you.
