If you used ChatGPT to outline, unblock, or edit a draft, the prose now reads like ChatGPT. TextSight runs a sentence-level check so you can see which paragraphs need rewriting, then rewrites the flagged sentences toward your own voice. Built for five-paragraph, argument, comparison, persuasive, and narrative essays, with ESL-aware calibration and citations preserved. Pre-Turnitin sanity check, not a detector workaround.
This is the workflow students who write their own essays with ChatGPT assistance run before submitting. It is a sanity check, not a detector workaround. The goal is to catch sentences where the assistant register leaked into your prose so you can rewrite them in your own voice before a detector flags them.
Paste the draft you intend to submit into TextSight. The scan returns an Authenticity Score in the 0 to 100 range and a sentence-level colour map. Anything below about 35 reads detector-level AI; above 70 reads consistently human. The score itself matters less than the highlights.
The colour map tells you which specific sentences are pulling the score down. In a typical five-paragraph essay assisted with ChatGPT, three to seven sentences carry most of the AI signal. The rest of the essay is usually fine. You do not need to rewrite the whole draft.
For each red sentence, either rewrite it in your own words or click Rewrite. Light mode preserves academic register and is the right default for essays your professor expects to read formal. Balanced is fine for blog-style coursework or reflection papers. Maximum is aggressive and we suggest using it only on isolated red sentences after a Balanced pass.
Paste the revised essay back in. Aim for above 70 on essays that count toward your grade, above 80 if you want margin. Then submit through your normal channel. TextSight does not interact with Turnitin and we make no promises about specific detector outcomes; we report our own score honestly and let you decide whether the draft is ready.
The detector and AI rewriter were calibrated against a sample of student essays across the five formats below. The structural patterns ChatGPT defaults to are slightly different in each one, and the AI rewriter adjusts accordingly.
The classic introduction, three body paragraphs, conclusion structure. ChatGPT writes this perfectly and that is exactly the problem; the skeleton itself is one of the strongest AI signals modern detectors weight. The AI rewriter often suggests merging two body paragraphs, moving the strongest point to the end, and opening paragraphs with specific claims rather than transition words like "Firstly" or "Additionally."
Claim, counterclaim, rebuttal. ChatGPT tends to hedge every claim and over-soften every rebuttal, producing a uniform politeness that reads AI. The AI rewriter sharpens the claim sentences and adds the personal stake (a specific example, a number, a hedge in your own voice) that signals authentic argument.
Two subjects, point-by-point or block format. The AI tell here is the perfectly symmetric structure; ChatGPT mirrors each point on subject A with an exactly equivalent point on subject B. Real student writing is asymmetric. The AI rewriter breaks the mirror by adding one extra detail on the side you actually know better.
Closer to argumentative but with explicit call-to-action language at the end. ChatGPT defaults to generic activist register ("we must," "it is imperative that") that reads templated. The AI rewriter swaps these for specific calls anchored to the audience your essay actually addresses.
Personal anecdote, reflection, or experience. The hardest format for ChatGPT to fake convincingly and the easiest for detectors to flag, because narrative depends on specific sensory detail and ChatGPT defaults to abstractions. The AI rewriter suggests where to insert a concrete detail (a smell, a name, a number) that the assistant left vague.
AI detectors have a documented false-positive bias against non-native English writers. The prose patterns common in ESL writing (slightly more formal register, less idiomatic phrasing, more careful sentence structure) overlap with the patterns AI detectors learn from the model side. That bias can flag fully human-written essays as AI.
In our internal evals against a sample of human-written ESL essays, the average competitor detector returned a false-positive rate around 18 to 22 percent. TextSight's detector returns roughly 11 to 13 percent on the same sample. That is around 40 percent fewer false positives, not zero, and we report this honestly because the gap matters for students whose first language is not English.
When ESL register is detected on a scan, the AI rewriter defaults to Light mode and adjusts its vocabulary substitutions away from idiomatic native-speaker phrasing. The goal is to keep your voice (which is in part your second-language voice) and only fix the AI-tell sentences. We do not try to make ESL essays sound like native-speaker essays; that would erase the writer.
If you are an ESL writer who used ChatGPT for editing assistance, the detector risk is higher both because of the assistant's influence on the prose and because of the underlying bias. Running the pre-Turnitin check matters more, not less. The threshold to clear is the same; the path to clearing it is gentler.
For academic essays, the mode you pick matters more than for other content types. Maximum can flatten the formal register your professor expects, so the default we suggest is more conservative than the default we suggest for blog content.
Light makes mild edits and preserves academic register, citation context, and your sentence structure. Score gains per pass are smaller, but the output still reads like an essay you would hand in. This is what we suggest as the starting mode for any graded academic work.
Balanced runs moderate rewrites and is the right choice for reflection essays, blog-format assignments, opinion pieces, and any coursework where the professor expects a less formal register. It shifts vocabulary and rhythm more aggressively than Light without flattening voice.
Maximum runs the most aggressive rewrite and produces the biggest score gain per pass. The caveat is real: aggressive rewrites can flatten authentic voice, replacing your distinctive phrasing with generic conversational patterns that may read fine for a blog post but flat for an essay. Use Maximum on isolated red sentences after a Balanced pass has already done most of the work, not on the whole draft as a first move.
The default we recommend for academic essays: start on Light. If the score is below 70 afterward, run Balanced on the remaining red sentences. Only reach for Maximum on the few sentences that still flag after both passes.
All three modes available on every paid plan. Students with a verified .edu email get Pro at $13.99 per month instead of $19.99. Full details on the pricing page.
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Essays are the use case where the line between legitimate authenticity and academic dishonesty matters most. We want to be explicit about which side of that line we are on.
Essays you wrote yourself, with ChatGPT used as an outline assistant, an idea unblocker, or an editing helper. The thinking is yours, the argument is yours, the structure is yours. The AI rewriter helps you catch sentences where the assistant register leaked into the prose so the submitted draft reads in your voice rather than the ChatGPT voice. This is closer to a careful proofread than to anything else.
We make no promise that TextSight will get any specific essay past Turnitin or any other detector. We report our own score honestly and explain what it means. If your essay is mostly ChatGPT and only lightly edited by you, our scan will tell you that and the AI rewriter will not magically fix it; it cannot put authentic thinking that was not there. The score and the highlights are diagnostic, not laundering.
Generating an essay with ChatGPT and submitting it under your name in a graded context is academically dishonest regardless of which AI rewriter you run it through. We will not pretend otherwise. If that is the situation you are in, we would rather you used the detector to understand which parts of the essay read AI and then rewrote them in your own words, building the skill that the course is trying to teach.
If you are a faculty member reviewing whether TextSight is appropriate to mention in your syllabus, the honest framing is: same tool as a grammar checker, used inside the same scope. Legitimate as a self-check before submission, not legitimate as a way to disguise generated content. The detector itself is also available for instructors at the institutional rate.
The full student workflow, .edu discount, and how to use TextSight inside your academic policy.
Open student page →The detector page focused on college coursework, Turnitin context, and the false-positive bias for ESL writers.
Open the detector →The flagship AI rewriter page covering all source content, not just essays. Three modes, closed-loop calibration.
Open AI rewriter →How the score is computed and what threshold to aim for before you submit a graded essay.
Read the guide →Free to try, no card. Sentence-level highlights, three modes, ESL-aware calibration, citations preserved.