Final Project for ENG 182: AI and the Idea of Writing
Professor Ainehi Edoro

Submit by December 3, 2025

The LLM Lab invites undergraduate writers to submit essays for consideration in our inaugural issue. We publish work that helps readers understand writing, intelligence, art, language, labor, and culture in the age of AI. We seek pieces that notice what others overlook, explain what others misunderstand, and present insights grounded in evidence.

The public conversation around AI is full of noise. You have extravagant claims from AI leaders in which speculation is presented as fact. But you also have critics and their endless commentary telling you what to fear or dismiss. In this moment of confusion, we are asking for writing that helps readers see clearly.

We are a very selective publication. See below for our guidelines. Please follow the guidelines closely for a chance at having your submission accepted:

[For a model of the kind of writing this assignment calls for, study Christopher Grobe’s “The Programming Era: The Art of Conversation Design from ELIZA to Alexa”; it is much longer than what you will write, but it shows the mix of detail, evidence, storytelling, and clarity you should adapt for your own work.]

[Go here for important requirements on style and formatting.]

Your essay must exhibit the following features:

A. Choosing an Object of Study

Pick something specific you can look at up close: a transcript, interface, design decision, dataset example, prompt, image, policy document, real-world scene, design feature, online debate, small experiment, screen captures, graphs, code, etc. Good objects give you something to describe and analyze. They also allow you to find patterns and unnoticed structures. Avoid objects so large that you can’t analyze them (e.g., “the future of AI”) or so abstract that you can’t show anything concrete.

B. Establishing Significance

Your essay should show why your question matters. This is not about articulating grand claims. Focus on what the reader cannot see until you show it. Grobe’s essay on conversation design is a model: he takes a familiar experience and reveals the unseen labor beneath it. That is the work of significance. There are three key questions that your essay must answer for you to know that it conveys its significance: Who is this for? Why would they care? What am I adding? Who it is for is not the assumed audience. For example, The LLM Lab is for undergraduates. But Who is it for speaks to an even more specific group. What do the people you are writing for care about? Write a list of things that the person you are writing for might care about. Grobe, for example, is writing for people who care about art, theatre, user interface, history of technology, AI, literature. As a writer, you never write for a broad, formless audience like “undergraduate.” You are writing for a room full of people who care about a set of things. Make a list for yourself so you see your readers as real people. Then think about Why should they care? which is pretty straightforward. And then What am I adding? This is important because the people you are speaking to already have a sense of what is out there, what has been said already. You need to make it clear to yourself and to them what you are adding to the existing conversation.

C. Using Multiple Types of Information

This is extremely important. We only accept essays that present a rich mix of information. At minimum, we require that essays include:

• Historical detail: There is always something that need to be set in history. Figure out what that is for your project. Avoid vague gestures like “since the dawn of time” or general historical statement. Be specific about the incident you are pointing to, date, place, moment.
• Anecdote: Include anecdotes. Tell little stories. It could be something that happened in real life like a classroom exchange or reference to a very striking example you found in your research. Pay attention to the stories told in the research you look at. These stories are great to retell and in corporate into your work.
• Technical explanation: For the kind of research you are doing, you will need to include elements that break down something technical for readers. You are likely writing something that involves aspects that most people are not experts in. Help them understand it as best as you can.

If you ask yourself, What information am I really giving the reader, it will fall under these rough categories. The reader gets a sense of the history of something they have never really thought about before. They leave your essay remembering incidents and stories they could share with people they meet. And they feel like you have taught them something technical that they may not have been able to grasp before. Err on the side of giving more detail rather than less. Your reader wants information, not generalities.

D. Showing Your Method

Tell the reader how you came to know what you know. If you learned something from a book, say which one. If a friend explained a concept, say that. If you ran an experiment or tested a prompt, describe what you did. Research is partly the story of how knowledge was gathered. Let the reader see how you arrived at your claims, where you hesitated, what surprised you, what changed for you as you looked more closely. Polished opinions feel false. Saying things that sound smart but that seem to come out of nowhere is not convincing. Show the reader how you discovered the idea. The process of discovery is part of the substance.

E. Positioning Yourself

Let the reader know who you are as a thinker. This is not autobiography. It is context: your discipline, your major, your curiosity, your limits, the perspective you bring. In a world where machines can write fluent text, readers trust writing that bears the imprint of coming from somewhere they can relate to. You don’t have to overshare, but by giving us enough of your background to understand how you see the world, what you know, and what you are trying to understand, you gain the trust of the reader.

F. Citation as Connection

We know you are used to citation as an obligation, and it is. You do have to cite all your sources. It is part of work built on strong evidence. But we also want you to think of citation as an organic part of your work. Think of citation as:

• showing where your ideas come from
• crediting others
• putting yourself in conversation
• giving the reader paths for further reading
• marking evidence

G. Showing, Not Summarizing

Readers want to see examples. Give them screenshots, quotations, diagrams, transcripts, scenes, stories. But they also want you to walk them through how these examples work, so describe the examples, detail them, and then show them how they work as evidence.

H. Writing for Trust

The most important element of this project is trust. Write so the reader feels informed and respected. Trust is earned through detail, evidence, citations, examples, stories, the opening up of your own personal journey, thoughtful structure, and a sense that you care about what you are showing. Trust is not something you can command a reader to feel. It comes naturally from how the reader connects to all the ways you take them seriously and respect their intelligence and really want them to hear you and follow your thinking.