Authorship Checklist
Do the work that makes it yours — and prove it.
AI detectors are wrong about non-native English writers more often than they are right, and universities are switching them off. The question that matters is "did you author it?" — and the checklist turns that into a live cockpit.
*No credit card required
- A per-document checklist of the human acts that make writing yours
- Auto-detects what it can from your real work — guides you to the rest
- Turns your process into a signed, shareable authorship record
The seven acts of authorship
Short answer Across academic-integrity guidance in the UK, EU, US, Canada and Australia, the same seven acts define authorship. Do these, and you have authored the work — whatever a detector says.
- 1
Write your own thesis
The one thing no tool can do for you. Brainstorm with AI if you like — but the position the essay defends has to be yours.
- 2
Write most of it in your own words
Authorship lives in the typing. Translation and grammar help are fine; pasting AI paragraphs as your own is not.
- 3
Find and read real sources
Open the papers you cite. AI invents references — reading your sources is both good scholarship and your defence.
- 4
Cite every source you used
Attribute every borrowed idea, even one you paraphrased into your own words.
- 5
Make the analysis yours
Connect and evaluate sources — synthesis, not summary. This is the human work assessors look for.
- 6
Paraphrase in your own words
Rebuild the idea, do not relabel it. Synonym-swapping that keeps the source shape still counts as plagiarism.
- 7
Disclose the AI help you used
State which tools you used and how. The checklist pre-fills this from your actual use.
Live cockpit
The cockpit fills
as you write.
The checklist is not a separate chore. It is a live scoreboard — completing it just means genuinely writing your paper in Diglot.
Your writing activity
The checklist adapts to the document and records the work you do inside it.
Evidence it can verify
Sources, drafting and disclosed assistance are recognised from real work — no separate form to fill in.
What still needs your judgment
The few things only you can attest stay clearly separate, ready to attach to your certificate.
Two kinds of proof — and we never blur them
Short answer Some acts we can verify for you; some you simply declare. Keeping them apart is what makes the certificate honest — and stronger than a detector score.
Auto-verified — signed
How much you typed vs pasted, real sources cited, AI tools used. Backed by the same cryptographic signature as your Authorship Certificate — a third party checks it in the browser, no account needed.
Author-declared — labelled
"I verified each source exists." "The analysis is my own." Your statement, clearly marked as a declaration — exactly the AI-use declaration universities already ask for. Honest, never overclaimed.
Find real sources
Research the literature.
Keep every claim traceable.
The checklist asks you to find and read real sources. Diglot's research tools search 200M+ papers across nine scholarly databases — OpenAlex, Crossref, PubMed, arXiv and more — so you can verify every claim before it enters your essay.
Learn about Deep Research →Why a checklist beats a detector
Short answer Detectors guess about the finished text and are biased against ESL writers. A checklist documents the human work that produced it — process evidence, not probability scores.
Research · Stanford 2023
61.22% of ESL essays misclassified as AI by 7 commercial detectors
Published in Patterns (Cell Press); 89 of 91 fully human TOEFL essays were flagged by at least one detector. Native-speaker essays were flagged far less often.
Source: arxiv.org/abs/2304.02819
University policy · 2023–2026
Universities are switching detectors off
Waterloo discontinued its AI detector in 2025, citing "bias toward students whose first language is not English." Vanderbilt followed; MIT published guidance titled "AI Detectors Don't Work."
The shift · process evidence
From detection to authorship
Regulators and integrity scholars point to documented process — drafts, sources, disclosure — as the defensible proof of authorship. The checklist produces exactly that, on your terms.
Full background: The Authorship Checklist — What Actually Makes an Essay Yours
Free Authorship Certificate
Your writing process becomes a signed record
Short answer Write in Diglot, then request a cryptographically signed Authorship Certificate for free. Anyone can verify it in the browser — no account, no install. The checklist is a separate guide.
Writing activity summary
A readable summary of the recorded drafting pattern, including typing, revision, paste, and AI-assistance signals.
Period & word count
When the writing started, when it ended, and how many words appeared in the final document.
Recorded surface
The certificate states where activity was captured. Today: the Diglot web editor.
Signature & public key
An ed25519 signature plus a pointer to the published public key. Verifiers check in the browser.
Authorship Checklist FAQ
What the checklist asks of you, what it leaves alone, and how it relates to the certificate.
Is using AI or translation to write an essay cheating?
Not by itself. Across UK, EU, US, Canadian and Australian guidance the line is drawn at authorship, not language mechanics. Translation, grammar help and disclosed paraphrasing are widely accepted; what must stay yours is the thesis, the choice and reading of sources, the analysis, and you must disclose AI use where required. Undisclosed wholesale generation — pasting an AI essay as your own — is the misconduct. The checklist is built around exactly this line.
Does completing the checklist guarantee a "Green" certificate?
No — and that is deliberate. The checklist is advisory. The signed Green/Yellow/Red verdict is a separate axis, based on how the text was built. We keep them separate on purpose: a partly self-declared checklist must never manufacture a cryptographic guarantee. The checklist guides you to defensible, well-authored work; the certificate independently records the process.
Why is this better than an AI detector?
Detectors guess about the final text, and they are wrong about non-native English writers more often than they are right — a Stanford study in Patterns (Cell Press) found commercial detectors flagged 61% of TOEFL essays as AI even when fully human-written. An authorship checklist does the opposite: it shows the human work that produced the document. Process evidence is what universities are moving toward as detectors are switched off.
Will it punish me for using translation or grammar tools?
Never. Using translation, fixing grammar or looking up a better word are language mechanics, not authorship — the University of Sydney explicitly says you do not even need to acknowledge spelling and grammar tools. The checklist treats these as help, the same way a dictionary is help. What it asks you to own is your thesis, your sources, your analysis, and your disclosure.
What data does the checklist use?
Only what your real work already produces inside Diglot — how much you typed, sources you cited, AI tools you used, sections you wrote. No new tracking and no biometric capture. Process evidence is opt-in and stays under your control; nothing runs as background surveillance.
When can I use it?
The Authorship Checklist is rolling out as part of the Diglot editor. The Authorship Certificate it attaches to is available today — start writing with a recorded, verifiable process now, and the cockpit lights up as it ships.
Write so you can always prove it
Start with a recorded, verifiable process today. Pair it with the Authorship Certificate for a signed, shareable record of your work.
*No credit card required
