I Did or AI’d? Contrastive Rhetoric of Human and AI-Authored Personal Narrative Essays

Writing is an essential skill every individual should have. It is a process whose output leads to self-representation and identification. However, writing has evolved, especially with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence. The development of these AI tools resulted in the proliferation of generative text outputs. Thus, this research aimed to study AI-produced outputs contrasted to human-authored outputs. This research analyzes the rhetoric of personal narrative essays generated from and written by two data sources. The analysis was done through Labov and Waletzky’s (1997) PEN model and Kaplan’s (1966) cultural thought pattern. The results showed that AI-generated essays resemble the moves and steps described by Labov and Waletzky, with five (5) of the six (6) moves being qualitatively preferred. On the other hand, the human-authored essays deviate, having two moves marked as optional. In addition, the analysis of structure, based on Kaplan’s doodles, found that AI-generated essays showed linearity in structure, manifested in the presence of all the moves and their ordinal placements. In the case of the human-authored essays, the analysis showed features with a mix of oriental-like and linear structures, realized through Move 2 - Orientation and Move 3 - Complicating Action, re-existing one after another, then returning to the main narrative. This led to the conclusion that AI generated and human-authored essays are contrastive, with contrasting results in resemblance and deviance within the framework used, in primacy of content, and in the genericness of outputs.