AcademicSee how a student's paper was written when you suspect AI use
While a student writes a paper in Word or Google Docs, Sennel keeps a step-by-step history of the work: what they typed, deleted, moved and rewrote, and when. That history is turned in with the paper. Sennel reviews it for you, and when a passage wasn't written the way this student usually writes, it marks the passage and notes what it saw, so you know where to look and what to ask.
When photography arrived in 1839, critics predicted the end of painting. Instead it pushed painters toward what a camera couldn't do.
- Claim rewritten on WednesdayThe revision changed the claim and added a date to support it.
Baudelaire saw it as a threat. He warned that “if photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether” (297).
- Quotation from the course readingPasted from Baudelaire’s Salon of 1859, and cited.
By 1850 Paris had dozens of daguerreotype studios, and many portrait miniaturists had retrained as photographers or turned to retouching prints, which left painting to justify itself on other grounds.
- ChatGPT openOpen from 11:02 PM while this paragraph was written. Sennel records that it was open, not what it was used for.
- Typed straight throughWritten in one pass and never revised. In her four earlier essays, Ada revised every paragraph at least once.
ChatGPT was open while paragraph 3 was written, and paragraph 3 was typed straight through and never revised. The other paragraphs were drafted and revised over two sessions. What it means is for you to decide.
A detector score gives you nothing to check or discuss with the student.
AI detectors estimate how closely a finished essay resembles machine writing. The score can be wrong, and it comes with no evidence behind it, so a disputed case is hard to settle and a student who did their own work can end up accused. A history of how the paper was written gives you specifics instead: which passage stands out, when it was written, and how much it was revised. You can check those yourself and talk them through with the student.
Sennel reviews every paper for you and marks the ones that need a closer look.
Sennel compares each paper's history with the student's own earlier papers and with what's typical for the assignment. A paper written over several sittings, with drafts that changed along the way, gets no mark. When part of a paper doesn't fit, Sennel marks that passage and says why.
Sennel gives no score and makes no judgment about the student. Its notes tell you where to look; what a marked passage means is for you to decide under your course policy.
| Student | Turned in | What Sennel found | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. Okafor | Thu 11:42 PM | Worth a look | Paragraph 3 typed straight through while ChatGPT was open |
| J. Lindqvist | Thu 9:03 PM | Nothing unusual | Developed across 3 sessions, 38 edits |
| M. Reyes | Thu 10:51 PM | Nothing unusual | Developed across 2 sessions, 26 edits |
| S. Patel | Fri 12:07 AM | Part not recorded | 38 minutes not recorded, affecting paragraph 4 |
| R. Nakamura | Thu 8:15 PM | Nothing unusual | Developed across 4 sessions, 61 edits |
| T. Brennan | Thu 11:58 PM | Nothing unusual | Developed across 2 sessions, 19 edits |
Each paper is compared with the student's own earlier work.
Sennel builds a profile of how each student writes. Ada's four earlier essays were each drafted over several sessions, and she revised every paragraph at least once. In Essay 5, the third paragraph arrived in one steady pass and was never touched again, so Sennel lists it as unlike her earlier work. That gives you something specific to ask her about: how she wrote that paragraph, and where its figures came from.
Papers are also compared with what is typical for the assignment, so a short response and a long research paper aren't held to the same idea of how writing should look.
The history shows more than timing. Sennel can tell a typo fix from a rewritten argument. It keeps track of a passage when the student splits, moves, or rewords it, and it keeps pasted text linked to where it came from. It also notes when an AI tool such as ChatGPT was open while the student wrote.
Students are less likely to hand in AI-written work when they know the history of how they wrote it is turned in too.
Every student in the course writes with Sennel in the same way, and they're told what it records before the first assignment. Handing in a paper they didn't write stops being an easy shortcut.
The record is useful when nothing is wrong, too. You can select a passage and show a student how their argument changed from the first draft to the last.
Sennel records only the assignment document, and students are told before it starts.
It records only the assignment document, while the student works on it. It collects no browsing history, screen recordings, or typing in other apps. Outside the document, it notes only where pasted text came from and whether an AI tool was in use.
A student's record is visible to the course's professor and the TAs they authorize. The university decides how long records are kept.
We can show you Sennel on a 20-minute call, then set up a pilot in one course.
After the call you get a demo environment to try it yourself. A pilot runs in one course, taught by a professor who volunteers, and needs no LMS integration. We complete your IT office's security and accessibility review before any student uses it, and afterward we write up what the pilot showed.