College Student Given 'AI Violation,' Probation After Grammarly Use—What Happened?

Who knew that using Grammarly could become a massive debacle in school? No one, and certainly not Marley Stevens, 21, who was recently flagged by her college professor at the University of North Georgia for an alleged "AI violation." Stevens claimed that she only used Grammarly to check her grammar, punctuation, and the like, but was said to violate another checking tool.

Moreover, the college student said that she did not seek help from Grammarly's generative AI to write the paper she submitted, but it was still flagged and considered to be a form of cheating.

College Student Given 'AI Violation,' Probation for Using Grammarly

From releasing a TikTok video about how the University of North Georgia flagged her paper about "unintentional cheating" when using Grammarly, now turned into academic probation for Marley Stevens. This saga, coined by Stevens as the "Grammarly Debacle" saw the narration of the events that took place after she was regarded to have an "AI violation" for her submission.

The student said that the paper she submitted did not use content from generative AI, but she admitted to using Grammarly to check her content's grammar and other aspects like punctuation, clauses, and the like.

After submitting it via Turnitin, it led to an AI violation, initially getting a zero grade on the said paper-and after connecting with the department head, her professor only wrote comments instead of an updated grade.

Stevens also regarded that the university's website also recommends Grammarly use.

Marley Stevens' Grammarly Debacle on TikTok

Further down the line, Grammarly reached out to Stevens and the university regarding this issue, but after the company's connection with the school, not much changed for her grades, specifically with that paper.

Over the TikTok playlist regarding this debacle, Grammarly was said to help her and provide explanations about their tech, but this did not help with her "academic misconduct charge."

Stevens is still on academic probation as of this writing.

Grammarly and Generative AI

For several years now, Grammarly presented itself with a tool to help correct grammar and other aspects of written content for users, with the ability to set the tone they want to use, as well as the guidelines they need their paper to be in. It presented massive features, and from using an algorithm down to employing AI to help with its corrective features, it was a trusted tool.

Last year, Grammarly presented a new feature called GrammarlyGo, it is powered by generative AI that learns more about a specific user's writing style and context, one that could help empower their compositions. The AI aspect of GrammarlyGo would help give suggestions on how to better improve the content, but not necessarily writing the entire paper, unlike other tools like ChatGPT.

However, the recent issue from the University of North Georgia and Stevens only shows how its assistive and corrective AI is still subject to being flagged, even when only using it for correcting the grammar on the paper. This debacle between Stevens, her professor, and the university is not yet over, and now, recently getting academic probation despite her evidence for the tool's use.