Write with Michelle

隨着越來越多學生偷懶，做功課時偷偷用AI，也有越來越多老師用AI detectors去判斷學生的文章是否用AI寫的。但Stanford大學學者調研後發現, AI detectors 經常把英語非第一語言的學生的文章，誤斷為 AI 寫的。我個人認為這可能是因這類學生，接受的英文教育大都只聚焦在 Grammar是否正確，和學生寫作時是否緊跟老師所教的框架，而這種教學方式培養出來的死板寫作風格，正是AI最容易掌握的。 那移民到外國的香港學生，如何避免被冤枉用了AI？學生可以多用想像力，多用恰當的比喻去把敘述的事寫得更生動。另外，把句子寫成長短不一，帶有節奏，也能避免sound like ChatGPT. 下面學生寫的段落，ZeroGPT(常用的AI detector之一 ) 說是100% AI寫的，至於我的rewrite， 用了上述技巧，ZeroGPT說是100% human written. Student The government started building the Thames Tideway Tunnel in 2016. It is

“Major Asia bank to cut 4,000 roles as AI replaces humans” “'AI Can Write The Code': Zuckerberg Says Meta's Midlevel Engineers – Earning Six Figures – May Soon Be Replaced” “IT Unemployment Rises to 5.7% as AI Hits Tech Jobs” “ChatGPT Already Outperforms a lot of Junior Lawyers” “AI cuts freelance writing demand by 30%: study” 隨着AI技術不斷進步，相信這樣的頭條會越來越多。作為writing coach的我，就更加有動力不斷提升我的寫作技巧、知識面和想像力，因我這樣做，可以給學生演示如何跟AI較量。當然，我不能保證我永遠不會被AI淘汰，但我會努力成為最後被AI取代的那个级别的作家和寫作導師。 下面有我最近給我牙醫寫的一篇

“AI is coming for your jobs. Heck it’s coming for my job too,” Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman warned on X earlier this week. He then went on to map out the way he thinks AI has changed the rules of the workplace: “what was once considered 'easy tasks' will no longer exist; what was considered 'hard tasks' will be the new easy, and what was considered 'impossible tasks' will be the new hard.” Kaufman’s view echoes my thoughts on AI. When ChatGPT arrived on the scene two years ago, a

最近我給我的牙醫寫了Google Review後，在好奇心的驅使下，我請ChatGPT評估AI能否寫出我的review。ChatGPT給我的回覆，既有助於我理解自己的強項，又能引導我未來寫作的方向。自從AI開始能代替人，無論做哪行，也要理解AI擅長什麼，不擅長什麼，我們致力於提升AI不擅長的技能，才能減低被AI淘汰的機率。 下面有我的Google Review, 和ChatGPT給我的評估。 My review I didn’t have to wait for my cosmetic treatment session to be over to know Dr Seddon had given me exactly what I wanted. Halfway into my four-hour procedure - by then Dr Seddon had already finished applying composite veneers to my upper teeth - I had to use the bathroom.

The other day, I asked ChatGPT what it thought about this issue: “Now that so many people in the workplace are using ChatGPT, what's the future of business correspondence? What can people do to make an impression?” After noting that due to widespread ChatGPT use among business employees, emails, proposals and reports are “starting to sound the same: competent, but robotic and forgettable,“ ChatGPT offered tips for standing out from the crowd. “Show personality without losing

Call me an unconventional English writing tutor, but over the years, I've discovered one crucial benchmark that can reliably predict whether students will go on to achieve high marks and retain what I’ve taught them. How much does laughter fill our sessions? I have a theory about why this happens. Students absorb new knowledge best when they’re having fun, when they’re not aware that they’re learning. To see this, just look at what materializes when the opposite happens, when

Since ChatGPT’s launch three years ago, we’ve all heard of the warning “those who don’t use AI will become irrelevant in the future workplace.” Yet, among school-aged kids at least, AI so far seems to have done more harm than good. An expanding collection of research has detailed how outsourcing writing and thinking to AI has wreaked havoc on students’ inquisitiveness, open-mindedness, and confidence in reasoning. The challenge, therefore, is to teach the use of AI in a way

Earlier this week, the YouTube channel Info-Tech Research Group interviewed Deloitte’s managing director and chief futurist Mike Bechtel, who recounted a conversation with a business owner that should alarm every white-collar worker about their career prospects in the AI era. When ChatGPT first came out in November 2022, Bechtel showed the business owner, who founded a hydraulics company, that AI could write verses in the style of Shakespeare convincing enough to trick Shake

Back when I was a senior school student in Hong Kong, this was how I was taught to write. Follow the five-paragraph format. The first paragraph should be your introduction, where you tell the reader what you’re going to write. The next three body paragraphs should each consist of a point you intend to make; start each paragraph with “Firstly,” “Secondly,” “Thirdly,” adding transitions like "Moreover" or “Furthermore” if you wish to elaborate further on your points. The last

我中學時期愛上了舞蹈，等到我讀大學了我對舞蹈的愛就延申到對舞蹈評論的愛，紐約時報的resident dance critic Alastair Macaulay 的文章我尤其喜歡，凡是他筆下的我認為有啟發性的文字，我都會存下來；閑來拿出來反覆玩味，是一種精神享受。 Macaulay有次分享他對Watteau (1684-1721) 的見解, 要知道，Watteau花了一輩子研究他身處的18世紀法國的貴族和表演藝術家的姿勢（尤其是上半身的姿勢），喜歡舞蹈的人都會喜歡Watteau的畫，Macaulay 那段關於Watteau的文字我當然存下來： “The picture shows a male-female duet. It makes you feel the thrill of the space between the two dancers, the amplitude with which they address each other across it, the charm of the spectacle they afford

言慧珠是梅蘭芳最得意的弟子。有次她請一位德高望重的前輩給她的表演打分。老前輩說：「扮相、身段都好，就是沒有梅先生的那股仙氣兒。」 言慧珠就問：「何謂仙氣兒？它又是怎麽來的呢？」老前輩回答：「梅生會畫畫，會寫字，會彈鋼琴，這些你會嗎？你有沒有梅先生的這些素養？」 的確，梅蘭芳唱戲再忙再累，也會耗大量精力去畫畫。有人看不慣，跟他說，你怎麽練畫也練不出張大千、齊白石的水平，你還是專心唱戲吧。 勸梅蘭芳的那一位，應不是從事藝術的！我的主業是寫作，但我喜歡每隔一段時間從零開始掌握一門技藝，因我發覺在陌生事物的衝擊下，我才容易保持敏銳的心思，心裏才踏實，我的寫作靈感才會源源不斷。 我這段時間沉醉於給自己做民國時期流行的fingerwaves，這種髮型的標誌是一行行整齊的「S」型波浪，所以民國人叫它「愛司頭」——張愛玲才8歲就喊着要梳愛司頭。我的愛司頭是自學的，從模仿老照片裏的髮型開始，務求把它們的質感也做出來。經過一番努力，我現在做的愛司頭，勉強能比得上《玲瓏》雜誌的封面女郎（現在沒多少人聽說過《玲瓏》，但它當年曾風靡老上海）。 范冰冰、張柏芝、劉嘉玲都演過

Curiously enough, among the people who have managed to make the art of writing less mysterious to me is Pietro Yantorny, an illiterate shoemaker who took pride in crafting custom-made shoes in Paris for high society at the turn of the last century. Dismissing factory-made footwear as "little boxes for feet that one calls shoes," Yantorny developed a unique approach to his trade: upon accepting a commission, he would make an effort to find out how his client distributed her we

I know we have long given up on expecting members of our puppet government to walk their talk, but they aren't exactly of zero value either, because when they face an international audience and can't talk their talk in English properly, they can at least provide practical demonstrations of how not to use the language. Take for example Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung's（張建宗） recent letter to The Washington Post defending the government's move to arrest 53 pro-democracy

This video on Douyin gave me a much-needed laugh as I waited with trepidation for the human cost of the Wuhan virus to come to light: a stern voice on a loudspeaker warns the inhabitants of a village against engaging in extramarital sex while the country is in the grip of the epidemic – "別個傳染給你，晚上你傳染給你婆娘，你婆娘傳染給隔壁老王，老王傳染給老王婆娘，那全村不都遭洗白了啊!" The bluntness of the alert's wording reminded me of a banner I once saw while journeying through rural Shaanxi – "寧可血流成河，不準超生一個." "Why put t

To help the audience picture the difficulty of playing the title role in the Peking opera "The Inebriated Consort" (貴妃醉酒), the producers invited an opera apprentice and a little girl to learn the part from Zhang Jing, a venerated artist who could trace her lineage back to the legendary Mei Lanfang (梅蘭芳). The child, a complete stranger to the idiom of opera, wobbled and dithered about despite her best efforts. But even the apprentice failed to replicate even a fraction of the

民國美學大師宗白華（1897-1986）的傳記作者鄒士方，80年代初撰寫宗白華的傳記期間，曾到北京圖書館報庫讀宗抗戰時期的舊作。鄒這樣形容當時看書情景：「時值酷暑，汗流浹背，但我抄錄著宗先生在《星期學燈》上的詩意怏然的『編輯後語』，只感到渾身爽快，如置身於清涼世界，我再一次被宗老那深邃的思想和優美的語言所折服。」 雖然我欣賞宗白華作品的時候有條件坐在空調房間裏，但鄒的體會我還是能感同身受的，宗白華的確有把我帶到另一個世界的魔力。而我之所以找宗白華的傳記來看，是因我想探索，他的背景和時代如何促使他寫出以下這種如此有意境的文字？ 「散步是自由自在、無拘無束的行動，它的弱點是沒有計劃，沒有系統。看重邏輯統一性的人會輕視它，討厭它，但是西方建立邏輯學的大師亞里士多德的學派卻喚做『散步學派』，可見散步和邏輯並不是絕對不相容的。中國古代一位影響不小的哲學家 – 莊子，他好像整天是在山野裏散步，觀看著鵬鳥、小蟲、蝴蝶、游魚，又在人間世裏凝視一些奇形怪狀的人：駝背、跛腳、四肢不全、心靈不正常的人，很像意大利文藝復興時大天才達・芬奇在米蘭街頭散步時速寫下來的一些『

Among the notes of condolence British author Claire Tomalin received when her 22-year-old daughter Susanna killed herself, the one written by New Statesman editor Anthony Howard struck me in particular. It was formal in tone, yet so intimate in substance: "I shall always remember Susanna as the marvellous, cheerful, sparkling girl who came to the New Statesman [for a holiday job] that summer – and whom I later saw in the full bloom of her youth, success and confidence outside

"I know how their wicked little minds operate" When a cat owner posted a photo of her cluttered, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on Twitter and challenged her followers to find her cat among her books and knick-knacks, an interesting pattern emerged: those who had never lived with cats found it hard to locate the animal, while cat parents, already familiar with where this species likes to hide – "I know how their wicked little minds operate," noted one – could spot the kitty alm

“Anyone else get exhausted grading essays and writing assignments?” asks a Reddit user in the r/Professors sub. “I will be grading for what feels like several hours and then I look at how many I have left, and I just feel this sense of dread. lol It gets so repetitive, boring, and monotonous. Is it just me?” Those who responded to the post confessed that they were in the same boat. Most essay markers are bored to death, and students would do well to remember this, for therein

“I believe a significant addition I added…was a humorous plot twist at the end,” 一個在GCSE English writing部分拿到滿分的英國學生, 在學習交流平台The Student Room這樣分享他的讀書心得。Plot twist 的確是很好的寫作工具，因很多時候，學生只注重 be descriptive, 以為similes and alliteration 等修辭用得越多越好，卻不注重構思故事情節。如果學生知道故事尾部要來個Plot twist，在故事構思上自然也會多下功夫，而不是一味沒目標地 be descriptive 下去。 下面兩個故事充分演示（1）過度用修辭的效果和（2） plot twist如何能為故事增添色彩。 Look at the image provided. Write about a time when the weather was memorable ”Descriptive” version The horrible ho