Can I use AI for my dissertation?

Most UK universities permit AI for planning, explaining concepts, feedback and proofreading support, but prohibit submitting AI-generated text as your own. Always check your institution's policy and declare use where required.

Will my university detect AI-written work?

Most institutions now run submissions through AI-detection alongside similarity checking, and viva or oral questioning exposes work the student cannot explain. Writing it yourself is the only safe route.

What is the ethical way to use an AI dissertation tool?

Use it as a supervisor would be used: to be questioned, challenged and pointed at reading — not to produce prose you submit. SuperDiss is deliberately built to coach rather than to write.

Using AI ethically in your dissertation

Where AI helps your learning, where it crosses into academic misconduct, and how to keep your dissertation genuinely yours.

8 min read · Reviewed 2026 · Written and reviewed by Chris McGarrigle

Your institution sets the rules on AI use, and those rules vary and change. Read your own regulations, and if you are unsure about a specific use, ask your supervisor in writing before you do it.

The principle underneath most policies is simple: the thinking, the argument and the words submitted for assessment must be yours.

Uses that generally support learning

These uses leave the intellectual work with you.

Being questioned about your reasoning until the gap in it shows.
Having a concept explained several different ways.
Rehearsing viva questions.
Getting feedback on the structure of something you wrote.
Generating search terms for your own literature searching.

Uses that are generally misconduct

These substitute for the work being assessed.

Generating text you submit as your own.
Producing a literature review from sources you have not read.
Asking for references — models fabricate plausible ones that do not exist.
Generating findings, quotations or data.

Verify every reference, always

Fabricated citations are one of the clearest markers of undeclared AI use and they are trivially checkable. Never cite anything you have not located and read in the original.

How SuperDiss is designed

SuperDiss deliberately does not write dissertation content for you. It questions, explains, challenges and coaches — because the person who has to defend this work in a viva is you.

Common mistakes

Assuming detection tools are the only risk.
Citing references you have never opened.
Using AI-generated phrasing you could not explain if asked.
Failing to declare AI use where your institution requires it.

Try this: The ownership test

Open any paragraph of your draft.
Explain aloud why every claim in it is there.
Check that you have read every source cited in it.
Rewrite anything you could not defend in a viva.

Do it in SuperDiss

Exactly what SuperDiss will and will not do for you.

Read our academic integrity position

Students also ask

Can I use AI for my dissertation?: Most UK universities permit AI for planning, explaining concepts, feedback and proofreading support, but prohibit submitting AI-generated text as your own. Always check your institution's policy and declare use where required.
Will my university detect AI-written work?: Most institutions now run submissions through AI-detection alongside similarity checking, and viva or oral questioning exposes work the student cannot explain. Writing it yourself is the only safe route.
What is the ethical way to use an AI dissertation tool?: Use it as a supervisor would be used: to be questioned, challenged and pointed at reading — not to produce prose you submit. SuperDiss is deliberately built to coach rather than to write.