I have a student who hands in assignments that read as though she is a very experienced academic. It does not reflect the vocabulary I am used to hearing from her when she performs her poetry and lyrics. I have previously told her I wonder if she is using Chat GPT or Grammarly because her submissions do not remind me of her voice. She glared at me with raised eyebrows as if to say how dare you. She said it’s all her own words. I said ok, if you say so. It happened again last week but I did something different. I gave her a mark of zero, stating I will issue the final mark after we meet. Tonight was the meeting, on Zoom. I asked her to read her submission. She stumbled over some of the words, ones which do not sound like her lexicon. After I helped her pronounce “initiate” and “cognitive dissonance”, I asked her what they mean. After all she used these words which it seems she cannot correctly pronounce. Her eyes seemed to look at another screen for about 20 seconds before trying to answer me about the meaning of the words. Her explanations missed the mark. I asked her how it could be that she uses words she cannot correctly pronounce and isn’t sure about their meaning. I told her this is why we are meeting. I said I like your work in class, you are smart and creative but these words do not sound like you. Then she said she writes in her own words and then puts it through Grammarly. It improves my writing she said. I agreed it sounds like Grammarly and I understand why she believes it improves her submission. I asked her to do it again and know I am much more interested in her words. It is tricky to get someone to tell the truth and trust being real. Probably it will not always go this way but I was very pleased with the outcome.