4.6: Getting the most out of AI feedback

Why AI feedback?

As I see it, reflecting on AI feedback on your work is a relatively straightforward and low-risk way to use AI. It allows you to get help and to build your prompting skills without missing out on thinking and learning. It’s a powerful alternative to letting AI write or rewrite for you.

By AI feedback, I mean comments that stimulate your thinking as you revise. I don’t mean chatbot rewrites or chatbots feeding you ideas or sources. A tutor shouldn’t tell you what to say, and a chatbot shouldn’t either. But both can support you to figure out what changes you want to make.

Reflecting on AI feedback means you can stay in control, keep your voice, and claim your words and ideas. And it can help you build confidence in your own judgment if you stay skeptical of the suggestions. Some AI advice will be bad, or it will be fine but not for you. You are the one who knows what you want to communicate to your readers. If you develop a habit of questioning AI feedback, you’ll be more likely to question AI in other contexts, which will serve you well in the workplace and in your personal life. People who can see where AI is wrong can improve on it or set it aside when something else is needed.

Another benefit to engaging with AI feedback is that you are unlikely to violate an academic integrity policy. If you use AI for ideas or drafting or rewriting, there will be pitfalls and gray areas around what is okay and what isn’t. If you’re reflecting on AI feedback but making your own changes, you don’t have to worry.

For all these reasons, I have focused on AI feedback since spring 2023 when I started serving as a volunteer advisor on the nonprofit app MyEssayFeedback. For four semesters, I’ve invited students to reflect on AI feedback, and they have overwhelmingly told me they find it useful. Still, I don’t see AI feedback as a replacement for human feedback; I assign peer review and tutor visits too.

In my mind, AI feedback will never be enough because chatbots never experience our writing. They convert our draft into numbers and use a giant chatbot formula to spit out other numbers that convert to the feedback we read. That text might help us think about what we want to say, but we’ve still got to share the draft with humans and see how it lands. Getting a response from a person who’s spent time reading or listening and gotten something out of what we wrote can be validating and energizing in a way chatbot feedback will never be.

Two very easy ways to get AI feedback

1. Sometimes the simplest approach to AI feedback works just fine. When I don’t have the energy to think through exactly what kind of feedback I want, I will upload a draft to a chatbot and literally say “Give me feedback.” The results are often useful and encouraging. If the feedback isn’t quite what I’m looking for, my disappointment often helps me articulate what kind of feedback I do want, and I follow up with a more specific request. (We'll talk more about this below.)

2. The other easy way to get feedback is to copy and paste a feedback prompt into a chatbot along with your draft. I'm going to recommend the prompt I know best, the one I worked on intensively with my colleagues on the Peer & AI Review + Reflection project (PAIRR) in spring 2025. We drafted the prompt to incorporate core principles of writing pedagogy, and we tested it extensively. It tells the chatbot to describe two strengths and two possible areas for revision, quoting from your draft along the way.
   
   The PAIRR prompt is designed to help you clarify what you want to communicate to readers. It’s supposed to help you find meaning in what you're doing, rather than just telling you if your essay conforms to expectations or predicting what grade you’ll get. We invite you to read and comment on the full prompt.
   
   To try it out, visit the PAIRR Writing Feedback Demonstration bot, hosted on the nonprofit educational platform PlayLab.ai (note that PlayLab makes your chats visible to the PAIRR team).
   
   Or you can copy and paste our feedback prompt into any chatbot. See the Which AI tools should I consider?.
   
   Follow these steps:

   1. Copy and paste the PAIRR prompt into the chatbot (I know, it’s long).
   2. Copy and paste or upload your draft.
   3. Optional: add your assignment instructions and/or rubric. (Our default prompt includes a basic common rubric for high-priority elements in writing-focused classes.)
   4. Consider the feedback and respond.

Continuing the conversation to get more out of AI feedback

Even after years working with AI, my first impulse is still to take the first result from a chatbot as the best it can do. But a core principle of AI literacy is iteration: pushing the chatbot toward a better result.

Chatting back in response to AI feedback supports AI literacy and your development as a writer and thinker. Whatever you're thinking or feeling as you read the feedback, wherever you're stuck about what to do next, that might be something worth articulating, and the chatbot might give you something useful in response.

Seven strategies for getting more out of AI feedback:

• Be frank and push back. You don't have to sugarcoat it for AI or worry about how it will come across as you might with a human tutor, teacher, or peer. You can be more blunt. Disagree, object, or tell it when you're overwhelmed or frustrated—it's supposed to respond in a helpful and empathetic way.
• Ask for clarification. When anything isn't clear, ask the chatbot to explain. You can also ask for more depth, detail, or quotes from your essay to support its suggestions, or request examples of how to make the kind of revision it suggests.
• Ask for a new version of the feedback. If you’re not satisfied, you can simply ask it to try again or give more insightful feedback. You can also request a different style of feedback based on your mood or preference, ask for the perspectives of a famous person you admire or a writer you've just been reading for class, ask how people with a particular life experience might respond, or ask for feedback that contradicts what it just said.
• Ask about something it didn't address yet. If the chatbot missed something in the assignment or rubric, something your instructor has asked you to work on, or something you’re curious about, bring it up.
• Get it to help you explore what you’re not sure about. Describe your uncertainties about what to do, and ask it to help you think through what's murky in your mind. You can also bring up something you’re thinking of adding to the draft and ask for suggestions about how it could fit in.
• Get it to suggest writing strategies. Describe what you're struggling with and ask what writing process strategies you should consider.
• Play with the bot. Sometimes we freeze up because writing is hard or because we're nervous about sounding academic. Having a playful discussion of your draft might help you relax and explore and bring more of your authentic voice to your writing. Try asking it how you could work a random topic like whales into your draft. Or ask for feedback in the style of a pop culture character. If the chatbot answers silly questions seriously or gives you bizarrely contorted feedback, that’s a good visceral reminder that these are prediction engines spinning text, not wise mentors—an AI literacy win.

Sample responses to AI feedback

Here are a few examples of the strategies described above.

Be frank and push back

• "That's seems condescending."
• "That seems biased against..."
• "Come on, didn't I already do that in this draft? I swear I did."
• "I'm not convinced I really need to make the thesis more specific."
• "I just don't think I can do that."
• "It just seems boring to add more examples as you suggest."

Ask for clarification

• "What do you mean by a more focused thesis?"
• "What's an example of splitting up a paragraph that’s too long? How do you know where to split it?"
• "Can you share more quotes from the essay to show where I'm vague?"

Ask for a new version of the feedback

• "Try again."
• "Give me more insightful feedback."
• "Loosen up and explain it again."
• "It seems like you're dancing around something. Give it to me straight."
• “Be more supportive and help me see my strengths, but stick to the truth.”
• "Can you explain it in a casual way like a friend would?"
• "What feedback might I get from soulful poet / brainy comedian / wise leader / social justice activist / scholar in the field?"
• "What kind of feedback might I get from a reader who has experienced homelessness?"
• "Now give me a reasonable perspective that goes against what you just said."

Ask about something it didn't address yet

• "What about my introduction?"
• “I want to improve my sentence style.”
• “My teacher suggested I work on integrating quotations.”
• "How could my paper be more interesting?"

Get it to help you explore your uncertainties

• “Ask me questions about what I want to do with the conclusion.”
• "I don’t like the idea of cutting out the descriptions of all the kinds of solar energy although I agree that the reader might get lost in them. Can you help me explore why I don’t want to cut them?"
• "That makes me realize I want to talk about the example of TikTok almost shutting down. Is there somewhere that could fit naturally?"

Get it to suggest writing strategies

• "I think my essay is all over the place, but outlines don’t work for me. How else can I work on organizing it?"
• "I'm feeling overwhelmed. What are some strategies that could help?"
• "I can’t think. How do I tell if I should take a break or keep pushing?"

Play with the bot

• "Okay, now tell me what possible connection my essay could have to popcorn / octopi / Batman / breakdancing. I want to put that in my conclusion."
• "What feedback might I get from Bart Simpson / Lisa Simpson / Spiderman / Ironman / Forest Gump / Grumpy Cat / Darth Vader / Aladdin's Genie" (Please insert your own favorite character or comedian here–I’m not with it enough to guess what might appeal to you!)

Take a step back, reflect, and talk to a human

To get the most out of AI feedback, at some point we have to set it aside and use other strategies. Make sure you give yourself space to decide what you really think about AI feedback and what, if anything, you want to change in your writing as a result. Some teachers might ask you to write about your thoughts and plans after reading AI feedback; this is part of the Peer & AI Review + Reflection approach. If you’re asked to do this, see Writing a reflection about AI feedback for possible topics.

Another way to get perspective on AI feedback is to seek out human readers. Sometimes I know just what I want to do with AI feedback, and I get right to it. Other times, I need to mull it over for a day. Still other times, the AI feedback makes me realize I need human input. If you’re not sure if you agree with the AI feedback or you want more trustworthy advice, it could be a great moment to reach out to your teacher, a tutor, a classmate, friend, or family member.

Human feedback can also counteract the chatbot tendency to tell us what we want to hear. This is often called “sycophancy”; we could also call it flattery or “kissing up,” though chatbots aren’t hoping to get something from us. They’re just designed to produce things that humans tend to like. Chatbots can make us question our ideas if we ask them to, but more often, they tend to reinforce our inclinations and biases.

I ran into this problem recently when I asked Claude for feedback on a description of an upcoming workshop for teachers. I enjoyed the cycle of feedback and revision so much; Claude gave suggestions and kept telling me that each draft was a big improvement. I felt great when it celebrated the changes I was making because I too thought I was on the right track. The result was a workshop description that listed every point I was going to make and every activity I had planned. When I sent the description to the workshop organizer, she wasn’t impressed and gently suggested I cut out the overwhelming detail. At first, I was indignant and felt unappreciated. After a few hours I had cooled down and decided she was right. Claude had helped me talk myself into agreeing with myself, but the human workshop organizer was right that human teachers would feel overwhelmed on reading all the specifics of what I meant to do.

A next-level way to engage with AI feedback: Writing or adapting your own prompt

I’ve focused on the easiest ways to request feedback and then emphasized expressing your specific needs in the followup chat above. But once you’re familiar and comfortable with chatbot feedback, you’ll likely want to be more specific from the beginning. Writing your own initial feedback request or customizing someone else’s allows you to reflect on what kind of help works best for you in your writing process. It’s also a good way to practice prompting.

Here are some things you could include in a feedback prompt, though none of these are required:

• What’s important to you right now: what do you want to know or work on?
• What instructions has your teacher given you?
• What role do you want the chatbot to play? Examples might include supportive and understanding writing tutor or cheerleader, a rigorous critic, or a skeptical reader.

Here are a few sources of sample AI feedback prompts you can adapt or just browse for ideas:

• The PAIRR prompt mentioned above.
• The MyEssayFeedback library of feedback prompts teachers have written and shared (you can filter by whatever focus you want or sort by most popular)
• The PapyrusAI prompt library has prompts tested by faculty at the University of California, Irvine, each with a different writing process focus
• Professor Mark Marino’s CoachTutor prompt is playful and funny.
• The University of Sydney’s instructions for Getting standards-based feedback focus on meeting the assignment criteria.

If you do come up with a custom feedback prompt that works well for you, consider sharing it! Here’s a site where students can post prompts.

Further reading

• Getting the most out of AI (prompting): Describe what you want and keep trying
• Bad Idea: Now that We Have AI, We Can Ditch Human Feedback! Generative Idea: Combining Peer and AI Feedback by Lisa Sperber
• AI as Feedback Generator by Ethan Mollick and Lilach Mollick
• I, Cyborg: Using Co-Intelligence: How I used AI in my book about AI by Ethan Mollick