How to write an AI use disclosure statement for your thesis
Universities increasingly require a written declaration of how you used AI. Here is what to include, four worked examples you can adapt, and how to evidence it.
Most universities have moved from banning generative AI to requiring that you declare it. The rule is usually short and the guidance is usually thin: you are told a statement is required, rarely what it should contain. This guide gives you the structure examiners are looking for, four statements you can adapt, and the part most students miss, which is being able to evidence what you claim.
One point before the templates. A disclosure is not a confession. Declaring that you used a tool to search literature or check grammar does not weaken your thesis; concealing it and being found out does. Written well, the statement reads as methodological transparency, which is the same instinct that makes you describe your sampling strategy.
What a disclosure statement has to answer
Wording varies by institution, but nearly every policy is asking the same four questions. If your statement answers these plainly, it will satisfy most rubrics.
- Which tools did you use? Name them, including the version or model where you know it.
- What did you use each one for? Be specific: literature searching, summarising, grammar, code, data analysis, drafting.
- What did you not use them for? This is the sentence that does the most work, because it bounds the claim.
- How did you verify the output? Examiners care far more about your checking process than about the tool.
Four worked examples
Adapt these to what you actually did. Do not copy one that overstates or understates your use: the statement is a claim you may be asked about in a viva.
1. Search and discovery only. "I used CiteDash AI to search the literature across OpenAlex, PubMed, Semantic Scholar and arXiv, and to organise the papers I selected. All screening decisions, all analysis and all writing are my own. No text in this thesis was generated by an AI system."
2. Language editing only. "I used generative AI tools for language editing: grammar, clarity and concision on text I had already written. No content, argument, citation or analysis was produced by an AI system, and I reviewed every suggested edit before accepting it."
3. Assisted drafting with verification. "I used CiteDash AI to draft sections of chapters 2 and 4 from sources in my own library. Every AI-assisted claim carries a citation to a real paper, and each was verified against that paper's full text before inclusion. I reviewed, edited and take full responsibility for all text in this thesis. An audit trail of every AI action and verification is available on request."
4. Data analysis support. "I used CiteDash AI to run descriptive and inferential statistics on my survey data. Tests were selected by me and computed by software rather than generated by a language model. The interpretation of results in chapter 5 is my own."
Where the statement goes
Check your handbook first, because a specified location overrides any general advice. In the absence of a rule, the conventional places are the declaration page in the front matter, immediately after the acknowledgements, or as a short subsection at the end of your methodology chapter. Some institutions ask for both: a one-line declaration in the front matter and a fuller account in the methods.
The part most students miss: evidence
A statement is an assertion. If your examiner asks how you know a particular AI-assisted claim is supported by the source it cites, "I checked" is a weaker answer than a record showing when it was checked and against which text.
This is the reason CiteDash records every verification rather than only performing it. Every claim carries a verdict of supported, partial, unsupported or unverified, checked against the cited paper's full text rather than its abstract, and the whole trail exports as an AI-use disclosure document you can attach or hand over. The Fact Checker produces it and Submission Readiness reports it alongside your originality screen.
If you are using other tools, keep your own log: date, tool, what you asked, what you kept, and how you checked it. A spreadsheet is enough. The point is that you can answer the question rather than remember the answer.
Common mistakes
- Vagueness. "AI was used to assist with this thesis" tells an examiner nothing and invites the questions you were hoping to avoid.
- Declaring the tool but not the task. Naming ChatGPT without saying what you used it for is the most common weak statement.
- Omitting verification. The checking process is the part that earns trust; leave it out and the statement reads as a disclaimer.
- Retro-fitting. Writing the statement at the end, from memory, is how understatement happens. Keep notes as you work.
- Assuming a detector is the standard. AI detectors produce false positives, particularly for students writing in a second language. A clear declaration plus an audit trail is a far stronger position than hoping a classifier stays quiet.
If your institution has no policy yet
Declare anyway. Policies are arriving quickly and are frequently applied to work submitted before they landed. A short, accurate statement costs you nothing and protects you from a rule written after you submitted. Where no format is specified, example 1 or 3 above is a safe default.