University of Edinburgh - AI Policy & UnTXT Guidance
What Edinburgh's AI Policy Actually Says
Edinburgh's position fits in one sentence, and it is a more careful sentence than most:
"The University does not ban the use of AI, though its use will be restricted for much of your assessed work."
Both halves are doing work. Not banned. Restricted for much of what you are actually assessed on — and Edinburgh goes on to publish a list of uses that are strictly prohibited and count as misconduct, while saying plainly that your own course can add more on top of that.
So there is no single Edinburgh answer to carry around with you. There is a University floor and a course ceiling, and the ceiling is often the lower of the two.
Where does a checker sit? UnTXT generates nothing. It reads a draft you have already finished, marks the passages carrying the statistical patterns of machine-written prose, and stops there — no text produced, none suggested, nothing altered, not so much as a comma moved. Edinburgh's prohibitions are aimed at AI-generated material ending up in your submission. There is none here to end up anywhere.
That does not settle it, and we are not going to pretend it does. Edinburgh's guidance is written about generating and about disclosure. A tool that only reads is simply not the thing it has in view, which is different from being permitted by it. Your course handbook binds you, and Edinburgh says as much itself.
One thing worth knowing rather than finding out. Edinburgh has seen a sharp rise in AI-related misconduct cases, so the people marking your work are more alert to this than they were two years ago. That is a reason to be able to account for how you wrote something. It is not a reason to be frightened of your own essay.
What we would do. Check your course guidance first — at Edinburgh that is the step, more than at most universities. Then say you used it, in one line: "I used UnTXT, an AI pattern checker, to check my own draft. It made no changes to the text."
Source: Using generative AI in your studies: guidelines for students — University of Edinburgh, checked 11 October 2026. Your course guidance sits above it. Where Edinburgh's pages and this one disagree, theirs is the one that counts.
Where the rule that binds you lives
The university-wide page is rarely the whole answer. Check, in this order: your assessment brief, then your module or course handbook, and if neither says, ask whoever set the work. If it matters, get the answer in writing.
Using UnTXT on Edinburgh work
- Finish the draft first. Run it on something complete. A half-written argument reads as disjointed to any checker, ours included.
- Paste it in and press Analyse. Two AI models read it separately and argue over each passage, and a third settles what they cannot agree on.
- Read the reasons on the grey passages. Grey means the passage follows the patterns machine writing leans on. Formal academic prose earns that honestly, so read the reason before you change anything.
- Leave the gold alone. Those passages already sound like you.
- Change what you decide to change, in your own words. Nothing on the page will write it for you.
- Say you used it, if your course asks which tools you used, and arguably even if it does not.
What the marks do and do not mean
A mark is not a verdict, and it is not evidence of how you wrote something. Grey says a passage reads a certain way. It cannot say who wrote it, and nobody at Edinburgh should be told otherwise on the strength of it, by you or by anybody else.
There is no percentage, because a number invites people to treat a reading as a ruling.
Questions
What does it cost?
The first 1,000 words are free, with no card. That covers an extract more often than a whole essay. Checking whole pieces means a monthly plan, from £8.40 including tax.
Can I check a dissertation in sections?
Yes. Every check is saved to your Documents under its own title, so you can go a chapter at a time.
My work has been questioned. What now?
Bring your process: drafts, notes, the sources that surprised you. That settles the question better than any tool's output does. There is a longer piece at If you have been accused.