Academic Literacy and Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Academic writing and literacy are the cornerstone of higher education teaching, learning and assessment. They are an avenue for epistemological access, knowledge acquisition and intellectual expression. Unfortunately, academic dishonesty has long been a part of the higher education system. With the advent of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, CoPilot and many others, academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, has become more sophisticated, raising ethical dilemmas in education. Recognising the importance of academic writing proficiency, this chapter reports on a continuous research project focusing on academic writing support at a selected higher education institution in South Africa. This action research project uses qualitative (and some quantitative) approaches to generate data through students’ written work, individual reflections, academic performance and biographical information. The project is called the “Student Journal Project” , where students, lecturers, tutors, library and writing centre personnel participate and contribute to the academic writing support. The findings highlight that students in this programme struggle with various aspects of academic writing. AI has significantly challenged academic writing, with students trying to cheat the system. The chapter concludes that with strong and proper intervention, support and guidance, students are more likely to develop positive attitudes towards academic writing and abstain from malpractices such as plagiarism and various forms of academic dishonesty. Though not theory-laden, the chapter thinly refers to self-determination theory to explain some aspects of motivation among the students, especially extrinsic motivation.