Policies
We are going to spend a semester studying these systems. It would be strange to pretend they do not exist, and worse to pretend that using them is simple.
Generative AI
Every submission in this course carries a short AI Use Statement — a few sentences, appended at the end, describing exactly what you used and how. An honest statement costs you nothing. A missing or false one is an Honor Code violation.
Unaided
The default for all graded prose.
The first draft of every essay is yours: your sentences, your structure, your argument. Not because AI-assisted writing is cheating in some cosmic sense, but because the specific thing this course teaches you to do — sustain a difficult thought over two thousand words without letting it collapse into fluency — cannot be outsourced and then acquired.
You are here to grow a capability. There is no shortcut, and the shortcut is the loss.
Permitted, with disclosure
Ordinary tool use. No objection.
- Brainstorming.
- Checking your understanding of a technical concept.
- Translating a passage.
- Glossing an unfamiliar term.
- Debugging code in the lab option.
- Asking for feedback on a draft you have already written.
Disclose it.
Required
Twice this semester.
You will be required to use a generative model and then take it apart.
- Unit 6 — generate forty variations on a prompt and diagnose the collapse.
- Unit 9 — have a model close-read Ovid, then grade its reading against your own from Essay 1.
These assignments only work if you engage the tool seriously and then look at the output with a cold eye.
You may use these systems as instruments, never as authors. If you are ever unsure which side of the line you are on, the fact that you are unsure is information. Ask me. I will not be angry; I will be interested.
Honor Code
William & Mary's Honor System is the oldest in the nation and it is yours to uphold. All work in this course is governed by it.
In practice, the two live issues here are citation — cite everything, including AI use, including conversations that changed your mind; over-citing has never once hurt anyone — and the AI Use Statement above.
If you are uncertain whether something crosses a line, the answer is to ask me before you submit, and there will be no consequence for asking.
Support
Accessibility
William & Mary accommodates students with disabilities in accordance with federal law and university policy. Contact Student Accessibility Services to determine eligibility and request an official letter — wm.edu/sas.
Bring your letter to me early in the semester so we can make a plan together. If you are still in the middle of that process, come talk to me anyway. I will not ask you for your diagnosis, and I do not need one to start helping.
Writing support
The Writing Resources Center in Swem Library offers free one-on-one consultations at any stage of a project, from a blank page to a final polish.
Consultations are not remedial; they are what good writers do. I will ask you to visit the WRC at least once for the research project, and I recommend going more.
Wellbeing
Your first semester of college is genuinely hard, and it is hard in ways that do not announce themselves. The W&M Counseling Center and Student Health Center are free, confidential, and used by many more of your classmates than you would guess.
If you are struggling — with the course or with anything else — you may always come to me, and I will help you find the right door even when it is not mine.
Title IX and mandatory reporting
As a faculty member, I am a responsible employee under Title IX and am required to report disclosures of sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking to the university's Title IX Coordinator.
If you need to speak with someone confidentially, the Counseling Center and The Haven are confidential resources. I will always tell you my reporting obligations before you tell me something, if I can see it coming.
In the room
Names and pronouns
Tell me what to call you and I will call you that, from the first day, regardless of what the roster says. I will get it wrong sometimes, and I would rather be corrected than left alone with the mistake.
This course spends thirteen weeks arguing that naming is a moral act. It would be embarrassing to fumble it in our own room.
Devices
Laptops and tablets are welcome for notes and texts. Please do not have a second life happening on your screen during seminar — you will be surprised how visible it is, and how much it costs the room.
Phones away, except during game and film analysis, when I will absolutely ask you to pull up a clip.
A closing note
There are no stupid questions in this class, but there is one wrong move: pretending to have understood something you did not. Half of you will bluff about the math and half of you will bluff about the poetry, and both halves will be doing the same thing for the same reason.
Don't. Say “I don't understand this.” It is the bravest sentence in any seminar, and the person who says it first is always doing a favor for the six people who wanted to.
- Instructor
- Ashley Y. Gao, Department of Computer Science
- ygao18@wm.edu
- Office
- Integrated Science Center 4, Office 2381
- Office hours
- TBD, and by appointment