This was an interesting experiement. I recently starting writing about my first year of motherhood. Right now, it’s formless so I took this opportunity to ask ChatGPT about what forms I may consider for writing this CNF essay.
Simple but I liked having a list here. I dug deeper into the “lyric essay.” GPT gave me a decent list of examples of lyric essays I could read, though it mostly listed full collections instead of specific pieces which would have been more helpful. I fed GPT some of my work and asked it to “translate into a lyric essay:”
I kept gettig this message no matter how many times I changed my prompt. Finally I realized that my own writing had the word “molest” in it. Sure enough, after I changed out molest for “assault,” it worked. The examples GPT generated, however, were crap. I tried to direct GPT a little more but asking to write in the style of writers like Maggie Nelson but it was pretty bleak. For example:
In the realm of longings and choices, our journey with Teddy unfolds. From the depths of desire to the weight of revelations, we navigate the intricacies of expectations, the shadows of the past, and the boundless possibilities of the future. Each moment becomes a lyrical note, and every word contributes to the symphony of our voyage.
This sounds pretty, I guess, but is about nothing. GPT’s responses any real lack substance.
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Hi all,
Apologies, I cannot figure out where Create –> New Post is. Perhaps it is just my novice QC knowledge, or an access issue. Regardless, I wanted to share my thoughts, and figured I would respond to Meg’s observations, as similarly, I was interested in the lyric essay & what Vlad Ivanov called the Reflective Essay. I started by putting a prior essay into Chat GPT that I am working on editing/ elongating. The essay is about the distortion between reality & dreams, and the narrator in this essay uses the dream world to try to conceptualize her struggles found in reality. While this first draft was created in undergrad, I found that I would rely to heavily on metaphoric language, and while this is still a large part of my writing, I do think I want a next draft to be more thesis-focused.
I asked Chat GPT what the reflective elements are in my writing sample, as it currently exists, and it gave me this response:
“The reflective elements in the writing sample include:
1. Personal Perspective: The narrator describes their thoughts, emotions, and reactions to the events, offering insight into their inner world.
2. Inner Monologue: The narrative often delves into the narrator’s thoughts, providing glimpses of their contemplations and interpretations of the events.
3. Exploration of Feelings: The sample explores the emotional responses of the narrator, such as their sense of wonder, curiosity, and even anxiety in certain dream sequences.
4. Rumination on Memories: There is a recurring theme of memory and nostalgia, with the narrator recalling past experiences like crossing bridges and encountering water lilies.
5. Dream Analysis: The narrator’s dreams are interwoven into the narrative, and they reflect on the symbolic and emotional significance of these dreams.
However, it’s important to note that the writing sample lacks a conventional structure and a clear central thesis or argument often found in reflective essays.”
Oof, Chat GPT definitely was honest with me here. This response did make me think about what we traditionally define as a thesis… is it okay that this piece doesn’t have a clear, structural thesis? Is Chat GPT just giving an objective perspective? While I do want the thesis to be more clear, I don’t want it to necessarily be “structural” (this lends itself to the subject, of unconventional ways of thinking about reality). I think I want to further play with Chat GPT to find this balance.
I did ask Chat GPT to make the existing writing sample into a reflective essay, and it basically took every sentence in the piece, and elongated each (each sentence felt largely like an over-explanation). If anything, Chat GPT’s first go turned me away from the Reflective Essay, as it felt all too formal. But, I don’t want to give up yet.
Well, it’s pretty interesting that the robot is policing your language!