Academic reading and writing are key skills at university. They allow us to access diverse content, develop more complex thinking, and actively participate in academic life. It’s not just about understanding texts or writing papers, but also about knowing how to argue, synthesize ideas, and communicate them clearly and effectively.

However, university students struggle with these types of academic practices, partly because both the readings and assignments are often significantly more complex than in high school or secondary school, but also because they lack specific training in academic reading and writing. Therefore, academic literacy is a gradual process that must be intentionally addressed at all educational stages .

In this context, the integration of digital technologies into higher education has opened up new possibilities for teaching and learning. Artificial intelligence, in particular, not only helps process and generate texts, but is also changing the way students read, interpret, and produce academic knowledge.

AI to “get by,” not to improve

We recently investigated how AI is affecting reading and writing in the university setting and encountered a significant paradox. Although most students report using artificial intelligence tools regularly (in many cases, daily), they acknowledge that they are not taking full advantage of their educational potential.

Students perceive this tool as a shortcut to save time, a language checker for already completed work, or simply as a text generator. This focus on the final result rather than the process limits its educational value and poses significant challenges for university teaching. Rather than fostering improved academic writing, these uses prevent students from developing a deeper relationship with texts and with their own learning.

The educational potential of AI

The true educational potential of artificial intelligence lies in its integration as support for the cognitive processes involved in reading and writing, and not as a substitute for intellectual effort. In this sense, some widely known tools can play a significant role if used with a clear educational purpose.

Unlike the use of AI as a simple language corrector, in this case aimed at eliminating grammatical errors or improving the superficial fluency of the finished text, its educational potential emerges when it is used to analyze and reflect on the writing process itself. And it is precisely here that we must focus our efforts.

For example, asking the tool to point out errors in argumentative coherence, to describe how an idea progresses throughout the text, or to identify implicit assumptions forces the student to interpret those observations and decide what changes to make, instead of accepting automatic corrections without reflection.

Supporting the understanding of complex texts

In the field of academic reading, AI can also support the comprehension of complex texts, helping to identify key ideas, establish relationships between concepts, or formulate questions that guide more critical reading. Used in this way, it does not replace reading, but rather acts as a mediator that facilitates the construction of meaning—a kind of reading comprehension tool.

For example, a potentially harmful use of AI would be to request a summary of an academic article to avoid reading it in full and then use it directly as the basis for a paper. In this case, the tool replaces interaction with the text and limits in-depth understanding.

In contrast, an educational use would involve asking AI to help identify the main ideas of the text, formulate questions about the more complex concepts, or explain the relationship between different sections of the article. If we have several articles, we can even ask for summaries of each one to select those that are truly useful for the final paper. These actions don’t replace reading, but rather guide and deepen it, fostering a more active and critical understanding. And this is the crux of the matter.

The challenge lies in shifting the focus from simply generating products to supporting the process: reading better to write better, revising to understand, and reformulating to think more deeply. This requires both students and teachers to develop new strategies for using the material.

An ethical and critical use for academic literacy

Artificial intelligence can become a valuable resource if it is incorporated from an ethical, critical, and educational perspective. This implies recognizing its limitations, questioning its responses, and acknowledging that it cannot replace critical reading and reflective writing, fundamental pillars of university education.

To move towards this educational use, it is necessary to offer clear guidance to both students and teachers. Some useful strategies for students may include:

• Request alternative explanations of complex concepts and compare them with the original text to detect nuances or discrepancies. Debate and argue with the AI ​​itself.
• Ask them to formulate critical questions about a text they have read, as a starting point for analysis.
• Use the tool to reformulate your own ideas and check if they maintain the same meaning.

From the teacher’s point of view, the challenge lies in explicitly integrating AI into classroom practices:

• Design activities that value the process (drafts, revisions, reflections on the use of AI) and not just the final product.
• Guide in class to learn concrete uses of AI to analyze texts, review writings or build arguments.
• Assign tasks that require justifying the decisions made based on the tool’s suggestions. Think!
• Create and promote spaces for discussion about the limits, biases, and risks of these technologies in the production of academic knowledge.

In short, academic writing and reading remain profoundly human endeavors, intrinsically linked to the development of thought and the construction of knowledge. Teachers and students need to focus not on what artificial intelligence can do for them, but on what they can learn by using it critically and reflectively.

Author Bio: María Santamarina Sancho is a Researcher and Professor in the Department of Language and Literature Didactics at the University of Granada and Juana Celia Domínguez-Oller is Assistant Professor with a PhD in the area of ​​Language and Literature Didactics at the University of Almería