Artificial Intelligence Applications in College Academic Writing and Composition: A Systematic Review

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.355878

Keywords:

higher education, educational technology, editing, academic writing, artificial intelligence

Abstract

Proofreading and editing are essential to enhance the quality of texts. While literature is abundant on technological tools for identifying semantic and lexical-grammatical errors, evidence on the actual effectiveness of artificial intelligence (ai) in this process remains limited, with studies varying in scope and rigor. This study examines whether existing evidence supports or contradicts the hypothesis that a ai-based applications help edit and proofread texts in higher education. A review was conducted in Scopus and Web of Science databases, covering scientific articles in English and Spanish, published between 2019 and 2024, related to university writing and the use of ai in text correction. Most studies were exploratory and descriptive. A notable increase in publications related to ai and academic writing was observed between 2022 and 2024, with the United States, China, Australia, and Canada leading in this area. Findings suggest that ai improves linguistic quality and feedback in the writing process. It also highlights issues related to academic integrity, data privacy, and ai’s inability to manage complex writing errors. More explicit connections between ai and university instruction are necessary to complement traditional pedagogical strategies. The need for more research in this area is urgent, as issues related to equitable access and responsible integration are essential to the use ai to support academic writing development.

|Abstract
= 106 veces | PDF
= 127 veces| | EPUB
= 3 veces|

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Adriana Pérez, Universidad del Norte

Assistant Professor, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia.

Steven K. McClain, Universidad del Norte

A graduate of the University of Virginia and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. A professor of English language and literature in the Department of Foreign Languages at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia. The author of The Monsters of Inkwhich Well: An Octosyllabic Science Fiction (2022).

Alana Farrah Roa, Universidad del Norte

Alana F. Roa is a professor in the Department of Spanish at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia. She holds a PhD in Communication, and her professional interest focuses on the relations between media and education. Currently, she researches the use of audiovisual in the teaching of academic writing and orality, the development of digital skills, and media literacy. 

Nayibe Rosado-Mendinueta, Universidad del Norte

Associate professor of the Language Institute  at Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia. Her research interests reside in the intersection of student learning and teacher learning and how language affects the construction of reality in contexts such as classrooms and in other institutions that surround us.

Lina Trigos-Carrillo, Universidad del Norte

Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish at Universidad del Norte in Colombia. She is interested in critical-sociocultural approaches to literacy, bilingualism, and education. Her work aims at understanding how the university can support diverse teachers, students, and communities while respecting their cultural identities and practices. She has also directed projects with families and communities to strengthen parent engagement and family/community literacy practices and peacebuilding in PK-20. Finally, she studies the flows of knowledge in literacy education from a global South perspective. As a researcher, she has expertise in qualitative research methods, in particular in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Ethnography, and Critical Participatory Action Research. 

Heydy Robles, Universidad del Norte

PhD in Education & Innovation from Tecnológico de Monterrey, México. She teaches both in the undergraduate and graduate programs in the Language Institute at Universidad del Norte.  She also has a Master degree in Education from Universidad del Norte.   Her interests are the use of technology for language learning, especially mobile technology. 

Oscar Campo, Universidad del Norte

Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at Universidad del Norte in Colombia. Research interests: Latin American Studies with emphasis on questions memory and writing in Colombia. His doctoral work was supported by the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR)/UIC Mellon Fellowship Program. He has published a short story collection (Los aplausos, 2014) and a novel (Días hábiles, 2021). He worked as a co-writer, researcher, and editor in two historical memory projects in Colombia: Vidas de historia. Una memoria literaria de la Organización Femenina Popular (2015) and Uprooting Narratives: A Memoir of Violent Displacements, Floridablanca-Santander (2019). He is also co-founder and editor in the independent publishing house, Himpar Editores.

References

Aljuaid, H. (2024). The impact of artificial intelligence tools on academic writing instruction in higher education: A systematic review. Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) (special issue on ChatGPT, April, 2024), 26–55. https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/ChatGPT.2

Anghelescu, A., Firan, F. C., Onose, G., Munteanu, C., Trandafir, A.-I., Ciobanu, I., Gheorghița, Ș., & Ciobanu, V. (2023). PRISMA systematic literature review, including with meta-analysis vs. chatbot/GPT (AI) regarding current scientific data on the main effects of the calf blood deproteinized hemoderivative medicine (actovegin) in ischemic stroke. Biomedicines, 11(6), 1623. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines11061623

Barton, D. (2001). Directions for literacy research: Analyzing language and social practices in a textually mediated world. Language and Education, 15(2-3), 92–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500780108666803

Beltrán, J. (2018). Manual de edición. Universidad Nacional.

Benítez, T.; Guariguata, Y., & Pérez, A. (2021). Pedagogía de géneros textuales para fomentar engagement en la escritura académica en educación superior. Literatura y Lingüística, 43, 309–348. http://dx.doi.org/10.29344/0717621x.43.2124

Carlino, P. (2013). Alfabetización académica diez años después. Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa, 18(57), 355–381. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/140/14025774003.pdf

Cassany, D. (1995). La cocina de la escritura. Anagrama.

Chong, G., Jian, M., & Zhiying, J. (2020). Artificial intelligence innovation in education: A twenty-year data-driven historical analysis. International Journal of Innovation Studies, 4(4), 134–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijis.2020.09.001

Ciapponi, A. (2021). La declaración PRISMA 2020: una guía actualizada para reportar revisiones sistemáticas. Evidencia, Actualizacion En La práctica Ambulatoria, 24(3), e002139. https://doi.org/10.51987/evidencia.v24i4.6960

Ezzaim, A., Kharroubi, F., Dahbi, A., Aqqal, A., & Haidine, A. (2022). Artificial intelligence in education —State of the art. International Journal of Computer Engineering and Data Science (IJCEDS), 2(2). Retrieved from https://www.ijceds.com/ijceds/article/view/37

Ezzaim, A., Kharroubi, F., Dahbi, A., Aqqal, A., Haidine, A. (2022). Artificial intelligence in education —State of the art. International Journal of Computer Engineering and Data Science (IJCEDS), 2(2). https://www.ijceds.com/ijceds/article/view/37

Faisal, E. (2024). Unlock the potential for Saudi Arabian higher education: A systematic review of the benefits of ChatGPT. Frontiers in Education, 9(1325601), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1325601

Fajardo, G. M., Ayala, D. C., Arroba, E. M., & López, M. (2023). Inteligencia artificial y la educación universitaria: una revisión sistemática. Magazine de las Ciencias: Revista de Investigación e Innovación, 8(1), 109–131. https://doi.org/10.33262/rmc.v8i1.2935

Franklin, C., & Bolick, C. (2007). Technology integration: A review of the literature. Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 1482–1488). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Freire, P. (1970). Cultural action for freedom. Harvard Educational Press.

Gil Gómez, M. (2016). Manual de edición. Guía para estos tiempos revueltos. Centro Regional para el Fomento del Libro en América Latina y el Caribe (CERLALC).

Gisbert, J., & Bonfill, X. (2004). ¿Cómo realizar, evaluar y utilizar revisiones sistemáticas y metaanálisis? Gastroenterología y hepatología, 27(3), 129–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0210-5705(03)79110-9

Gough, D., Oliver, S., & Thomas, J. (2017). An introduction to systematic reviews. SAGE.

Gregorio-Chaviano, O., Marín-Florez, A., Katherine López-Mesa, E., López-Córdoba, M. A., López Gómez, M., & Zamora, M.-C. (2023). Efeito das citações do jornal Índice de citação de fonte emergente sobre o fator de impacto. Encontros Bibli: Revista Eletrônica de Biblioteconomia e Ciência da informação, 28, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.5007/1518-2924.2023.e91382

Guerra-Lyons, J., Benítez, T., Pérez, A. & Rosado, N. (2023). Towards growing control of factorial explanations: Reflections from a genre-based course experience in Colombia. Revista Signos. Estudios de Lingüística, 56(112), 260–281. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-09342023000200260

Haddaway, N. R., Page, M. J., Pritchard, C. C., & McGuinness, L. A. (2022). PRISMA2020: An R package and shiny app for producing PRISMA 2020-compliant flow diagrams, with interactivity for optimised digital transparency and open synthesis. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 18(2), e1230. https://doi.org/10.1002/cl2.1230

Holmes, W., Persson, J., Chounta, I., Wasson, B., & Dimitrova, V. (2022b). Artificial intelligence and education: A critical view through the lens of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Council of Europe. https://rm.coe.int/artificial-intelligence-and-education-a-critical-view-through-the-lens/1680a886bd

Holmes, W., Persson, J., Chounta, I., Wasson, B., & Dimitrova, V. (2022). Artificial intelligence and education: A critical view through the lens of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Council of Europe.

Holmes, W., Porayska-Pomsta, K., Holstein, K. (2022a). Ethics of AI in Education: Towards a Community-Wide Framework. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 32, 504–526. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-021-00239-1

Hopgood, A. (2022). Intelligent systems for engineers and scientists: A practical guide to artificial intelligence. CRC Press.

Horner, B. (2013). Ideologies of literacy, “academic literacies,” and composition studies. Literacy in Composition Studies, 1(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.21623/1.1.1.2

Humble, N., & Mozelius, P. (2019). Artificial intelligence in education —a promise, a threat or a hype? Proceedings of the European Conference on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, EM-Normandie Business School Oxford, UK, 31 October-1 November 2019, 149–156. https://doi.org/10.34190/ECIAIR.19.005

Jaeho, J., Seongyong. L., & Seongyune, Ch. (2023). A systematic review of research on speech-recognition chatbots for language learning: Implications for future directions in the era of large language models. Interactive Learning Environments, 32(8), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2023.2204343

Kaynak, O. (2021) The golden age of artificial intelligence. Discover Artificial Intelligence, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44163-021-00009-x

Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (2006). The “academic literacies” model: Theory and applications. Theory into practice, 45(4), 368-377. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071622

Li, X., Jiang, Y., & Rodriguez-Andina, J. (2021). When medical images meet generative adversarial network: recent development and research opportunities. Discover Artificial Intelligence, 1(5). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44163-021-00006-0

Mahir, P., Hanifah, E., & Syarifuddin, S. (2023). Discussing ChatGPT in education: A literature review and bibliometric analysis. Cogent Education, 10(2), https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2243134

Mora, R. (2012). Literacidad y el aprendizaje de lenguas: Nuevas formas de entender los mundos y las palabras de nuestros estudiantes. Revista Internacional Magisterio, 58, 52–56.

Page, M., McKenzie, J., Bossuyt, P., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T., Mulrow, C., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J., Akl, E., Brennan, S., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M., Li, T., Loder,E., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., McGuinness, L., … Moher, D. (2021a). Declaración PRISMA 2020: una guía actualizada para la publicación de revisiones sistemáticas. Revista Española de Cardiología, 74(9), 790–799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.recesp.2021.06.016

Page, M., McKenzie, J., Bossuyt, P., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T., Mulrow, C., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J., Akl, E., Brennan, S., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M., Li, T., Loder,E., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., McGuinness, L., … Moher, D. (2021b). The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ, 372(71), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71

Page, M., McKenzie, J., Bossuyt, P., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T., Mulrow, C., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J., Akl, E., Brennan, S., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu,M., Li, T., Loder,E., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., McGuinness, L., … Moher, D. (2021c) The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. PLoS Medicine, 18(3), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003583

Pérez, A. (2019). Lenguaje en acción. Lenguaje, propósitos, funciones y su relación con la lengua. Universidad del Norte.

Pérgola, L. (2021). Escribir, editar y corregir textos. El Guion Ediciones.

Phillips, A., & Bhaskar, M. (2019). The Oxford Handbook of Publishing. Oxford University Press.

Porter, H. D. (2017). Constructing an understanding of undergraduate disciplinary reading: An analysis of contemporary scholarship. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 48(1), 25–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/10790195.2017.1362970

Roll, I., & Wylie, R. (2016). Evolution and revolution in artificial intelligence in education. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 26, 582–599. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-016-0110-3

Sallam M. (2023). ChatGPT utility in healthcare education, research, and practice: systematic review on the promising perspectives and valid concerns. Healthcare, 11(6), 887. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11060887

Samek, W., Montavon, G., Vedaldi, A., Hansen, L., Muller, K. (2019). Explainable AI: Interpreting, explaining and visualizing deep learning. Springer Cham.

Santos Rego, Miguel A., & Fernández-Ríos, Luis. (2016). El factor de impacto y el futuro de las revistas académicas. El riesgo de patologización. Innovación educativa, 16(72), 35–52. http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1665-26732016000300035&lng=es&tlng=es

Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge University Press.

Tiwari, A., Kumar, A., Jain, S., Dhull, K. S., Sajjanar, A., Puthenkandathil, R., Paiwal, K., & Singh, R. (2023). Implications of ChatGPT in public health dentistry: A systematic review. Cureus, 15(6), e40367. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.40367

Trigos-Carrillo, L. (2019). A critical sociocultural perspective to academic literacies in Latin America. Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura, 24(1), 13–26. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v24n01a10

Urrútia, B., & Bonfill, X. (2010). Declaración PRISMA: una propuesta para mejorar la publicación de revisiones sistemáticas y metaanálisis. Medicina Clínica, 135(11), 507–511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.medcli.2010.01.015

Valverde, M. T. (2018). Escritura académica con tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en educación superior. Revista de Educación a Distancia (RED), 18(58). https://revistas.um.es/red/article/view/351521

Williams, C., & Beam, S. (2019). Technology and writing: Review of research. Computers & Education, 128, 227–242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.09.024

Williams, P. (2009). Technological literacy: A multliteracies approach for democracy. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 19, 237–254. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-007-9046-0

Yepes-Nuñez, J. J., Urrútia, G., Romero-García, M., & Alonso-Fernández, S. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews [Declaración PRISMA 2020: una guía actualizada para la publicación de revisiones sistemáticas]. Revista Española de Cardiología, 74(9), 790–799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.recesp.2021.06.016

Yuchen, J., Xiang, L., Hao, L., Shen, Y., & Okyay, K. (2022). Quo vadis artificial intelligence? Discover Artificial Intelligence, 2(4). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44163-022-00022-8

Zawacki-Richter, O., Marín, V. I., Bond, M., & Gouverneur, F. (2019). Systematic review of research on artificial intelligence applications in higher education—Where are the educators? International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 16(39), 3–27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0171-0

Downloads

Published

2025-02-13

How to Cite

Pérez, A., McClain, S. K., Roa, A. F., Rosado-Mendinueta, N., Trigos-Carrillo, L., Robles, H., & Campo, O. (2025). Artificial Intelligence Applications in College Academic Writing and Composition: A Systematic Review. Íkala, Revista De Lenguaje Y Cultura, 30(1). https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.355878

Issue

Vol. 30 No. 1 (2025): January-April 2025 Issue

Section

Literature Reviews

Categories

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

Most read articles by the same author(s)