Before You Begin
This page will walk you through generating a polished first draft of your article using an AI tool and your dissertation. You bring your research; the AI helps you organize and express it. No prior experience with AI tools is required.
Before starting, you will need three things: your dissertation (in PDF or Word format), a working title for your article, and a rough sense of the sections you want to cover.
Download the Detailed AI Instructions for Authors. It includes prompt templates, voice calibration tools, a full outline template, and editorial tips for every step.
Download Full InstructionsTeaching Your AI Platform Your Voice
Before writing a single word of your draft, teach the AI whose voice to use; otherwise it will write in its own generic academic register, not yours.
Before you begin drafting, identify two or three passages from your dissertation that sound most like you at your best. The most reliable places to look are:
- Your dedication and acknowledgments, where your voice is most unguarded and personal
- Your positionality statement or researcher reflexivity section, if your methodology includes one
- Your discussion and conclusion chapters, where you interpret findings rather than report them
- Any section where you explicitly advocate, recommend, or speak directly to practitioners or policymakers
"Before we begin, I want you to understand whose voice this article should be written in. Please read the following passage from my dissertation and describe my writing style in detail, including sentence rhythm, emotional register, use of first person, degree of formality, vocabulary choices, and any other stylistic patterns you notice. Then confirm you will apply this voice profile to everything you write for me in this conversation."
[PASTE YOUR SELECTED PASSAGE HERE]
How to Generate Your Draft in 9 Steps
The following nine steps are the standard process. Work through them in order. For detailed guidance on any step, see the Detailed Instructions download.
Open your AI platform and upload your dissertation file directly into the conversation.
Use a reputable platform that supports document uploads and is appropriate for unpublished academic content. If you are choosing for the first time, we recommend Claude (Anthropic); a full platform comparison is included in the Detailed Instructions download.
Type or paste your working title. If you don't have a final title yet, a working title is fine; it focuses the AI from the start.
Paste your completed outline into the conversation using the template below.
- [YOUR ARTICLE TITLE]: Article Outline for Drafting
- I. Introduction: What question, tension, or lived reality does this article open with?
- II. [SECTION 2 HEADING]: What does the reader learn here?
- III. [SECTION 3 HEADING]: What theories or mechanisms does this section explain?
- About the Study (required, placed before your findings; covers methods and scope): Who you studied, how many, where and when, and how you gathered and analyzed the evidence.
- IV. [SECTION 4 HEADING, typically findings or interview themes]: Key findings and themes. Include participant language you want preserved.
- V. [SECTION 5 HEADING]: The central tension or deeper implication of your findings.
- VI. [SECTION 6 HEADING, typically recommendations]: What can practitioners or policymakers do based on your findings?
- Limitations (required, placed near the end): What your findings can and cannot support: sample size, how participants were selected, when the research was done, and your own role in the study.
- VII. Conclusion: What is the final message? What do you want the reader to feel or do differently?
Tip: A few sentences per section is enough, just enough for the AI to understand your intent.
Paste the core prompt below to tell the AI exactly what to produce.
"Using my dissertation and the outline above, please draft a [LENGTH] article titled [TITLE] for [AUDIENCE, e.g., practitioners in educational leadership / scholars in your field]. Write it in my voice, as established in the voice calibration passage above. Use my dissertation as the primary source. Do not add information not present in my dissertation. Do not generate citations from memory; leave a placeholder wherever a citation is needed and I will verify it. Structure the article using the sections in my outline, and include two short sections in plain language: an "About the Study" section before the findings covering methods and scope, stating who I studied, how many, where and when, and how I analyzed the evidence; and a Limitations section near the end, stating what my findings can and cannot support."
Submit the prompt and let the AI produce the full output before you begin reading. If it stops mid-draft, type "Please continue."
Read the draft in full before using any part of it. Flag any factual errors, voice drift, or hallucinated citations.
Treat the draft as a strong starting point. Add your own examples, sharpen your argument, and correct any inaccuracies against your original research.
Record the platform used, the date, the prompt, and which dissertation sections the AI accessed. This is required for all AI-assisted submissions to Undeterred Press.
What You Can Expect
A good AI draft will:
- Follow your outline's structure and cover the sections you specified
- Sound recognizably like you, not generic, if the voice calibration step was done well
- Be approximately the right length but require real revision before it is ready to publish
It will not be perfect. That is normal and expected. Think of it the way you would think of a talented research assistant who has read your dissertation carefully but is writing the first draft for your review.
Final Author Checklist
Before submitting, confirm each item below. You will be asked to check every item on the Submit page before your submission can be prepared.
Purpose and argument
- The article states its purpose and who it is written for.
- A theoretical or conceptual framework is named and used in the analysis, not only in the introduction.
- The findings, conclusions and recommendations are consistent with one another, and no claim goes beyond what the evidence supports.
- The article explains why the findings matter and how practitioners can apply them.
Required sections
- An “About the Study” section, before the findings, states who or what was studied, how many, where and when, and how the evidence was gathered and analyzed.
- A “Limitations” section, near the end, states what the findings can and cannot support.
Accuracy
- Every number in a headline, table or summary matches the number in the text and in my data.
- Survey questions and scales are described the way they were actually asked (for example, “select all that apply” versus “rank”).
- Participant quotes are copied word for word from my source data or dissertation.
- Tables and figures are accurate, necessary and discussed in the text.
Sources
- Every in-text citation appears in the reference list, and every reference is cited in the text.
- Each source supports the specific claim it is cited for, and factual and historical claims rely on scholarly, government or primary sources where possible.
- References follow APA 7th edition in a single alphabetical list.
Disclosure and permissions
- My AI disclosure level is stated, and I have personally reviewed and verified any AI-assisted content.
- I have permission to publish any data collected through or owned by another organization, and participants consented to the research.
Ready for review
- The article is 3,000 to 10,000 words and has been checked for clarity, organization and grammar.
- This is the version I consider ready for editorial and subject-matter review.
We Are Here to Help
If you get stuck at any step (with the AI, the outline, or the prompt), reach out. We have worked through this process with authors and we know where it tends to snag.
For complete guidance including the Voice Dimension Reference, editorial tips for each step, platform selection criteria, and the pre-submission checklist.
Download Full Instructions