Research program
Writing With AI
Designing AI-assisted systems that scaffold expert writing practice
Investigates expert long-form writing as a complex cognitive system, and asks what a software environment looks like when it is built around the structure of that process — clarity, tension, structural revision, voice — rather than around the easier-to-automate task of generating text. This program produced ISRD Writing Studio (formerly Systemic Writer), an AI-assisted writing environment built as a design experiment: software as both output and evidence that the underlying model of the writing process holds up under real-world use.
Research questions
- What is the cognitive structure of expert long-form writing, and where are its highest-leverage intervention points?
- Can an AI-assisted environment scaffold that structure — preserving human judgment at every consequential decision — without collapsing into pure text generation?
- Does a production system built on this model function as evidence that the underlying theory of the writing process is accurate?
How AI is used
AI is the core process facilitator under study — not a novelty feature. The program investigates how language models can be structured to support, rather than replace, expert judgment throughout the writing process.