Delving into ChatGPT usage in academic writing through excess vocabulary

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

LLM Vocabulary “Tells” in Scientific Writing

  • Commenters latch onto “delving” as a strong LLM shibboleth, noting a ~25x rise in abstracts and obvious echoes of marketing/corporate prose.
  • Other frequently spiking words (“crucial,” “potential,” “significant,” “important,” “these”) are seen as common but overused in LLM output.
  • Some think the paper’s use of “delving” in the title is a deliberate joke/meta-commentary.

Explanations and Confounders

  • Several note possible confounders:
    • Autocorrect/grammar tools in Gmail and editing software.
    • Editors or journal workflows increasingly using LLMs, especially for non‑native authors.
    • Social contagion: people copy colleagues’ new phrasing even without direct LLM use.
  • Others counter that year‑pair analyses in the paper and global usage spikes suggest a strong LLM effect, not just organic drift.

Use of LLMs in Academic Writing

  • Many describe LLMs as ubiquitous in academia, especially among non‑native English speakers and in “publish or perish” environments.
  • Reported uses range from light editing and clarity suggestions to first‑draft generation, translation, and heavy rewriting.
  • Some editors and associate editors explicitly encourage LLM use to fix poor grammar before review.

Ethics, Plagiarism, and Norms

  • Strong disagreement over whether using LLMs for prose assistance constitutes plagiarism or academic misconduct.
  • One side: generating text for a paper (especially without acknowledgment) is tantamount to fraud, similar to AI art in graded/commissioned contexts.
  • Other side: treating LLMs like advanced Grammarly or a helpful colleague is acceptable if findings aren’t fabricated; norms are still evolving.
  • Dispute extends into analogies with calculators, Photoshop, and code assistants.

Style, Quality, and Human Voice

  • Some lament increasingly generic, buzzword‑heavy prose and filler reviews that appear LLM‑generated.
  • Others argue academic writing was already verbose and jargon‑laden; LLMs may not be uniquely to blame.
  • Several advocate for clear, succinct writing and cultivating a distinctive personal style to stand out from LLM‑ish language.
  • There is concern that people will learn to “sound like LLMs” because they use them as writing tutors.