UnTXT and the University of Oxford's AI Policy - What Students Need to Know
Summary: Oxford allows AI within an assessment only with specific prior authorisation, and its guidance does not say where a tool that only reads your draft sits. So ask first. It costs one email.
What Oxford's AI Policy Actually Says
Oxford is the strictest of the universities we have written up, and we are not going to soften it for you.
"Artificial intelligence can only be used within assessments where specific prior authorisation has been given."
That is the line. Not acknowledge it and you are fine — authorisation, in advance. The University's guidance also says that "there should be a clear acknowledgement of how AI has been used", and unauthorised use falls under the plagiarism procedure, whose penalties run from mark deductions up to expulsion.
Where does a checker sit? Oxford's guidance does not say. It does not distinguish tools that produce text from tools that only read it, and the one place it mentions spelling and grammar checkers is in the context of reasonable adjustments for disability rather than as a general carve-out.
So here is the honest position. UnTXT generates nothing — it reads a finished draft and marks passages, and produces no material that could end up in your work. On any ordinary reading, that is not "using AI within an assessment" in the sense the rule is aimed at. But Oxford has not written that down, and we are not going to tell you it has.
What we would do at Oxford, specifically. Ask first. Not because we think you are doing anything wrong, but because Oxford's own instruction is that authorisation comes in advance, and a one-line email to your tutor or course administrator before you submit costs you five minutes. Doing it afterwards costs considerably more, and at Oxford the procedure it runs through is the plagiarism one.
If you have already used it and did not ask, declare it clearly in your submission and say what you used it for. A clear acknowledgement is what the guidance asks for, and an honest declaration has never made anybody's situation worse.
Source: The University's Policies on AI — Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, checked 7 September 2026. When we went back on 11 October 2026 that page would not load for us, and Oxford's central policy page, AI use in summative assessment, turns automated readers away, so we could not re-confirm the wording above. Read the central policy yourself before relying on this page. Your department and your course handbook may be stricter still. Where Oxford'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 Oxford 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 Oxford 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.