How to talk to a student about a flagged essay
The five-step process on this page ends with a conversation. Here is how to actually run that meeting without putting a student on the defensive before you have heard them out.
Before the meeting. Read the report yourself, compare it against a baseline of the student’s earlier work, and decide what you are actually asking them — not “did you cheat” but “walk me through how you wrote this.”
Open with the process, not the score
Tell the student what you looked at and why: the assignment, their policy, and a report that flagged some passages. Naming the process first signals that this is routine, not a verdict already reached.
Ask, don’t accuse
“Can you walk me through how you wrote this?” works better than “this looks AI-written.” The first invites an explanation. The second invites a denial, and you learn nothing either way.
Useful follow-ups:
- Where did the structure come from — an outline, a template you were given, a first draft?
- Which parts took the longest, and why?
- Can you show me an earlier version, in Google Docs or Word history?
What not to say
- “The detector says X%” as if the number were the finding. It is one input.
- Anything that assumes guilt before the student has answered.
- A threat of consequence before you have actually established what happened.
If the explanation holds up
Say so, plainly, and move on. A student who was treated fairly on a false flag remembers it — and English-language learners and writers of formulaic genres are exactly the group most likely to need that fairness, per the research on detector bias cited below.
If it doesn’t
Follow your institution’s academic integrity process from here — a report is evidence to bring into that process, not a substitute for it.