From Shakespeare to Prompt Engineering: How the MKBU Academic Writing Workshop Rewired My Brain
As an M.A. English student at Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU), my daily reality usually revolves around reading Victorian novels, postcolonial theory, and trying desperately to memorize endless publication dates for the dreaded UGC NET exam.
My mindset was shattered between January 27 and February 1, 2026. The Department of English, in collaboration with the Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat (KCG), hosted a week-long National Workshop on Academic Writing. Over the course of those six days, moving between the formal setting of the New Court Hall in the Administrative Building and our familiar, everyday classrooms in the Department of English, my entire perspective on research, writing, and my own academic identity was completely turned upside down.
The core theme of the workshop was something that initially sounded like an oxymoron: bridging natural intelligence with artificial intelligence in research. We had 100 participants, a mix of students, scholars, and faculty members, all trying to figure out how to survive in a world where ChatGPT can write an essay in three seconds.
Here is my detailed, day-wise reflection on how a group of national and international experts taught us not just to use technology, but more importantly, how to find and protect our own human voices in the increasingly crowded, AI-driven academic world.
Day 1: The Inauguration, the AI Wake-Up Call, and the Shock of the "Authorial I"
(January 27, 2026)
Day 1 — Inaugural Ceremony at the New Court Hall, MKBU
The workshop kicked off on a Tuesday morning at the New Court Hall. To be completely honest, a lot of us in the MA batch were just excited to have a break from our regular lecture schedule. We expected the usual inaugural formalities. But the tone got incredibly serious very quickly.
Honorable Vice Chancellor Prof. B.B. Ramanuj and our Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Dr. K.M. Joshi, took the stage and pointed out a hard, uncomfortable truth that made the room go quiet. India produces an absolutely massive volume of PhD theses every single year, yet our global citation impact is shockingly low when compared to countries like the US and China. We write hundreds of pages, we get our degrees, but the global academic community isn't actually reading or citing our work.They spoke about the evolution of writing and how we moved from scratching on cave walls to typing on digital screens. But the phrase that stuck in my head, and became the unofficial motto of the week for me, was the urgent need to "preserve the human in the human." With AI basically writing college-level essays flawlessly now, what makes our human research actually matter?
🎯 Unofficial Motto of the Week:
"Preserve the Human in the Human"
Inaugural Ceremony | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Session 1 & 2: Prof. (Dr.) Paresh Joshi — Prompt Engineering
Prof. (Dr.) Paresh Joshi — Prompt Engineering: Teaching AI to Think With You
Right after the Inaugural Ceremony, Prof. (Dr.) Paresh Joshi took over the session. I was bracing myself for a boring lecture on grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. Instead, he hit us with "Prompt Engineering."
He explained that AI is not a magic wand; its output is completely dependent on our input. If we are lazy and just type "write an essay on Hamlet," the AI is going to give us lazy, generic garbage. He gave us a sharp, practical framework to use whenever we interact with AI: Role, Task, Context, Constraints, and Output Format (RTCCO). It made so much sense. You have to tell the AI who it is acting as, what exactly it needs to do, the background information, what it should avoid, and how it should present the final text.
🤖 THE RTCCO FRAMEWORK FOR PROMPT ENGINEERING
R — Role
Who is AI acting as?
T — Task
What exactly to do?
C — Context
Background information
C — Constraints
What to avoid?
O — Output Format
How to present?
He also warned us heavily about AI "hallucinations"—times when the machine just confidently lies to please you. We, the human researchers, have to be the ultimate fact-checkers.
Prof. (Dr.) Paresh Joshi | Session 1 & 2 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Session 3 & 4: Prof. Kalyan Chattopadhyay — The "Authorial I"
After lunch, we shifted back to the Department of English for Prof. Kalyan Chattopadhyay's session. This was the moment that truly challenged my traditional Indian academic mindset.
Prof. Kalyan Chattopadhyay — Introducing the "Authorial I"
Growing up in our education system, I was always taught to sound "objective" and distant. I would purposely write clunky, passive sentences like, "It is observed in the text that..." or "The researcher aims to..." because saying the word "I" felt arrogant. Who am I to say "I think" when talking about Shakespeare?
Dr. Chattopadhyay told us to drop the act immediately. He introduced the concept of the "Authorial I." He told us to confidently write "I argue," "I propose," or "I contend." It felt so weird and risky to even practice it in my notebook. But he explained something that shifted my perspective entirely: if you are doing the hard work of research, you need to assert your identity on the page. You have to take responsibility for your claims. If you hide behind passive voice, you sound like you aren't confident in your own findings.
Prof. Kalyan Chattopadhyay | Session 1 & 2 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Day 2: IMRaD in Literature, the Art of Hedging, and Facing the Fear of Scopus
(January 28, 2026)
Morning Session: Prof. Kalyan Chattopadhyay — IMRaD Structure & Hedging
We started Wednesday morning with Dr. Chattopadhyay again. Once we got somewhat comfortable with the idea of using the Authorial I, he broke down the actual architecture of a globally acceptable research paper using the IMRaD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion). As literature students, we rarely think about "Methods" and "Results"—we usually just write long essays. But he showed us how applying this logical structure makes our arguments much sharper and easier for international journals to digest.
📐 IMRaD STRUCTURE FOR LITERATURE STUDENTS
📖
I — Introduction
What is the research gap? Why does this study matter?
🔬
M — Methods
How did you approach your analysis? What framework or lens?
📊
R — Results
What did your analysis reveal? Present your findings clearly.
💬
D — Discussion
What do the results mean? How do they connect to existing scholarship?
He also taught us a linguistic tool called "hedging." As enthusiastic but inexperienced students, we often make wild, absolute claims in our papers. I remember once writing, "This poem proves that Victorian society was completely broken." Dr. Chattopadhyay taught us to soften our claims to be more academically honest and bulletproof. Instead of saying "proves," we should use phrases like "suggests," "indicates," or "could be interpreted as." It is a tiny shift in vocabulary, but it instantly makes writing sound much more mature, credible, and open to scholarly debate.
🛡️ THE ART OF HEDGING — Before vs. After
Before (Absolute Claims)
"This poem proves that Victorian society was completely broken."
Sounds arrogant. Easy to attack. Not academically credible.
After (Hedged Claims)
"This poem suggests that Victorian society may have been experiencing deep structural fractures."
Sounds mature. Defensible. Open to scholarly dialogue.
Dr. Kalyan Chattopadhyay | Session 3 & 4 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Afternoon Session: Dr. Clement Ndoricimpa — Publishing in Scopus & Web of Science
Dr. Clement Ndoricimpa — Virtual session from Burundi on Scopus & High-Impact Publishing
In the afternoon, we had a fascinating virtual session with Dr. Clement Ndoricimpa, who joined us all the way from Burundi. His topic was publishing in high-impact index journals like Scopus and Web of Science.
I won't lie, my immediate internal reaction was panic. In our department, "Scopus" always sounded like a terrifying, exclusive club meant only for senior professors with decades of experience. Why was he talking to us MA students about it?
Dr. Clement was direct and uncompromising. He had actually reviewed some of our early writing assignments before the workshop, and he pointed out a massive, embarrassing flaw: we completely fail to establish a "research niche." We have a bad habit of trying to answer questions that were already solved by scholars twenty years ago, simply because we don't bother reading recent literature.
He showed us how to use software like Mendeley to organize our references and keep track of what is currently being published. He warned us that Scopus journals run intense plagiarism and AI checks before a human editor even glances at your paper. It was a harsh reality check. If we want to play in the big leagues, we have to read the current conversation before we open our mouths to speak.
Dr. Clement Ndoricimpa | Session on High-Impact Publishing | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Day 3: Fake Citations, Ethical AI, and the Integrity of the Scholar
(January 29, 2026)
Morning Session: Prof. Nigam Dave — AI Hallucinations & Research Ethics
Day 3 — Prof. Nigam Dave: The Dangerous Truth About AI Hallucinations
Thursday was entirely dedicated to the ethics of modern research. Prof. Nigam Dave took the morning sessions, diving deep into AI hallucinations.
I have to admit here, like most students, I have used ChatGPT to summarize long, boring chapters or explain complex literary theories when I was running late on an assignment. But Dr. Dave showed us exactly how dangerous generative AI can be if you blindly trust it in serious research.
⚠️ HOW AI HALLUCINATIONS DESTROY ACADEMIC CAREERS
🤖 Step 1: AI Generates
AI happily invents entirely fake journal articles — fake author names, fake journal titles, realistic volume/issue numbers, even fake DOI links.
📋 Step 2: Student Copy-Pastes
Without fact-checking, the fake citation goes directly into a Master's thesis or PhD chapter — looking perfectly legitimate.
💀 Step 3: Career Over
Journal editors, reviewers, or examiners check the citation. It doesn't exist. Academic suicide. Your credibility is destroyed permanently.
He did a live demonstration of how an AI will happily invent entirely fake journal articles. It will generate a fake author name, a fake journal title, realistic-looking volume and issue numbers, and even a fake DOI link, just to make its answer look confident and helpful. If you don't check it, and you copy-paste that fake citation into a master's thesis or a PhD chapter, your academic career is basically over. It is academic suicide.
The Rule: We shouldn't be using AI to write our core arguments or generate our ideas. Instead, we should use it for the heavy lifting of formatting, checking grammar, and organizing data. He talked about "AI policing AI"—using detection tools to maintain our integrity. Relying on reference managers like Zotero or typesetting in LaTeX is perfectly fine and actually encouraged, but the human brain absolutely has to remain the driver of the research vehicle.
Prof. Nigam Dave | Session 1 & 2 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Afternoon Session: Dr. Clement Ndoricimpa Returns — Ethical Referencing & Formatting
In the afternoon, Dr. Clement returned from Burundi for two more sessions on publishing. He reinforced everything Dr. Dave said, noting that ethical referencing and flawless formatting are the bare minimum requirements that actually get you past the initial "desk rejection" phase at top-tier international journals.
Dr. Clement Ndoricimpa - Session 2 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Days 4 & 5: Unlearning Rote Memory and Entering the Fifth Quadrant
(January 30 & 31, 2026)
Days 4 & 5 — Dr. Kalyani Vallath: Reverse Planning, Career Building & the Fifth Quadrant
The last two formal days of the workshop were heavily focused on our immediate futures and careers. For any M.A. English student in India, the UGC NET exam hangs over our heads every single day like a dark, intimidating cloud. Most of us prepare for it by blindly memorizing massive books of British history, author biographies, and publication years.
Dr. Kalyani Vallath came in and basically told us to stop wasting our time. She explained that the new NET pattern doesn't care how much raw data your brain can hold—it tests inference, application, and critical thinking. She introduced a concept called "Reverse Planning" for tackling big research goals and exams. Instead of starting at page one of a textbook, you look at the end goal, analyze the exact skills required to beat the exam, and work backward to design your daily study routine.
🔄 REVERSE PLANNING — Dr. Kalyani Vallath's Method
Step 1
Identify the End Goal — What exactly does NET/career demand?
Step 2
Analyze the exact skills required to succeed
Step 3
Work backward — design daily routine from the goal
Step 4
Build portfolio of real skills, not just degrees
She also talked about the "Zone of Proximal Development." But her biggest, most hard-hitting piece of advice was to stop relying entirely on traditional university degrees to get a job. A degree just gets your resume looked at; a rich, diverse portfolio of actual skills (like academic writing, content creation, and digital literacy) is what actually builds a sustainable career. It was incredibly motivating and made me rethink my entire study strategy.
Dr. Vallath's Core Message: A degree just gets your resume looked at. A portfolio of real skills — academic writing, content creation, digital literacy, multimodal E-content — is what actually builds a sustainable career in 2026 and beyond.
Dr. Kalyani Vallath | Part 1 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Dr. Kalyani Vallath | Part 2 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Dr. Kalyani Vallath | Part 3 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Dr. Kalyani Vallath | Part 4 | National Workshop on Academic Writing
Key Learning Outcomes: My Transformation
Here are the concrete, practical skills I am taking away from this experience:
🎓 KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES
| Skill / Outcome | What I Learned |
|---|---|
| 🤝 Unity in Class | Before this workshop, I hadn't attended any similar workshops on this topic. This workshop required me to work with my entire Semester 2 class and help each other, which taught me how to collaborate effectively and foster unity within the class. |
| 🤖 Mastering Prompt Engineering (RTCCO) | I now understand exactly how to talk to AI to get useful results. By strictly assigning a Role, Task, Context, Constraints, and Output Format, I can use AI as a highly efficient, smart assistant to help outline my thoughts, rather than using it as a lazy cheat code. |
| ⚠️ Ethical AI Use & Fact-Checking | After seeing Dr. Dave's live demonstration of how easily AI hallucinates fake journal citations and DOIs, I know to never, ever trust it for raw academic facts. I will only use AI for formatting, structural reviews, and proofreading. My core arguments and my literature reviews will remain strictly human. |
| 🔍 Strategic Reading & Research Niche | Thanks to Dr. Clement's blunt advice on Scopus publications, I realize that reading classic, 50-year-old books isn't enough to write a good paper today. I have to actively seek out and read current, recently published journal articles to find the actual "gap" in the existing literature before I even type my first word. |
| 🔄 Reverse Planning for UGC NET | I am officially dropping the stressful, useless rote-learning method for competitive exams. Going forward, I will focus on critical reading, drawing inferences, and most importantly, building a practical portfolio of skills (like creating multimodal E-content) to secure an actual academic career, rather than just chasing a piece of paper. |
| 🛡️ The Art of Hedging | I have learned to protect my arguments by using softer, more academic language. Swapping absolute terms like "proves" for scholarly terms like "suggests" makes my writing far more credible and professional. |
| 🎨 Design Skills | I possess proficiency in utilizing Canva for design creation. During the workshop, I was entrusted with the responsibility of designing the brochure, certificates, banner, and other visual materials, collaborating with my colleague, Milan. This task allowed us to explore and implement various design techniques and tools, significantly enhancing our skills and ensuring the best possible output. |
Final Reflection
This week-long workshop wasn't just about learning grammar rules or figuring out how to format a bibliography. It taught me how to survive, adapt, and actually thrive as a literary scholar in 2026. The AI revolution is already here, and it is moving fast. But thanks to the Department of English at MKBU and KCG, I finally feel equipped to handle it, and more importantly, I know exactly how to keep "the human in the human."
📸 Click Here to See All Photos of the Workshop
🧠 WORKSHOP AT A GLANCE
6 Days
Jan 27 — Feb 1
100
Participants
National &
International Experts
AI + Human
Intelligence Bridge
🧠 "Preserve the Human in the Human" — The Workshop That Changed Everything 🧠
This blog reflects my personal experience at the National Workshop on Academic Writing organized by the Department of English, MKBU in collaboration with the Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat (KCG), January 27 — February 1, 2026. Exploring how natural intelligence meets artificial intelligence in modern academic research.
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